The Book of Dobby: Per Arcana ad Astra
by Doghead Thirteen
Summary: There's only so far you can push anyone before they'll push back, and Harry's been pushed too far. Between that and Dobby's form of mad proving contagious, things are about to get violent. ABANDONED.
1. Chapter 1

**This ain't no self-insert fic.  
This ain't no slash fic neither.  
This is the Book of Dobby.  
**

**Trace your way back fifty years  
To the glow of Dresden - blood and tears  
In the black above my cruel searchlight  
Men will die and men will fight - yeah!  
Who shot who and who fired first?  
Dripping death to whet the bloodthirst  
No radar lock-on - skin and bones  
The bomber boys are going home.**

- Iron Maiden, Tail Gunner' -No Prayer For The Dying-  


--The Smallest Bedroom, #4 Privet Drive, Surrey--  
--June 22nd 1995--  
--4:42PM--

Harry James Potter, age a touch under fourteen, wasn't entirely familiar with anger. He'd always been a pretty forebearing kind of guy, willing to let byegones be byegones (probably the main reason he was still friends with Ron Weasely) and rarely quick to throw the first stone.

But there only ever so far you can push a man before he will push back. And Harry had been pushed that little bit too far.

The Wizarding World was the only place he'd ever felt at home. Hogwarts was the only place he'd ever felt like he'd belonged. And now it had been taken away from him.

The time of his trial had been changed, and he hadn't been informed until it was all over. He'd been tried in absentia, taken in to the Ministry, his wand snapped, and expelled from Hogwarts. They'd even taken most of his school things away. His books, his uniforms – even his potion supplies. Then Dumbledore - looking visibly upset, amazingly enough - had adamantly insisted he go back to Privet Drive.

That was the last straw. For the first time in a long time, he was PISSED. The last time he'd been so angry, he'd inflated Marge Dursley. The Dursleys had seen how things near Harry were randomly levitating or coming apart, and made the unusually sensible choice of staying out of the way. Currently, he was laying flat on his back on the floor in his room, muttering and snarling, fixing the ceiling with the blackest of glowers, and being watched by a visibly worried Hedwig, who was perched on the windowsill and taking a certain amount of glee in pooping down the Dursleys' wall.

The door creaked open, and Harry directed his finest glower - learned from nauseatingly constant study of Snape - in that  
direction.

To his surprise, Dudley Dursley gulped, but came in anyway.

"Uh, hi Harry." Dudley said. It was obvious that the chronically overweight boy was still shaken up from their oh-so-recent close encounter with a pair of Dementors.

"What do you want?" Harry spat.

The bed creaked as Dudley sat down.

"I, uh, well, y'see, I wanted to, uh, thank you." Dudley said.

That was enough to pull Harry out of his funk.

"... what?"

"I want to thank you, Harry." Dudley repeated. "That stuff the other night... I heard what you said. I heard what the batty old cat lady said. And... well, I know I'd be dead if it wasn't for you, and I'm too young to be dead."

"And look where it got me." Harry growled, sitting up.

"Yeah, I know. I heard what that fr- what that Dumbledore dude said. You had everything, Harry. And you threw it all away for me. That's gotta mean something."

"Don't lie to yourself, Dudley. I was fighting for myself, you were just there so I was between you and the Dementors."

"Doesn't matter, does it? I know I'm a fattass and I know I'm a bit fik, but I know when I owe someone, and I owe you. Look, Harry. I told Mom and Da if they were mean to you I'd throw a wobbler till I went blue and threw up, and when they wanted me to say why I tole 'em I'd be dead if you hadn't stuck up for me, and I dunno how but I want to say thanks in a way that'll like help you mebbe as much as you helped me and... uh, I'm not good at this stuff."

"Not much you can do, is there Dudley? I've been thrown out of the Wizarding World, which is where I want to be. All I want is to belong, is that too fucking much to ask? There's gonna be a war. It's gonna be really bad, Dudley. People - lots of people – are  
going to die. I tried to warn them, and did they listen? The fuck they did. They shitcanned me for trying to warn them."

"Yeah, I know. That's what that Dumbledore dude said, only you're more sweary than him... You know what I think, Harry? I think you need to get really good at duffing stuff up. Proper duffing it, not just, you know, giving it a bit of a kicking. I think you need planes and bombs and machine guns and stuff." He rooted around in his pocket, and unearthed a packet of cigarettes. "Hey, uh, you mind if I smoke? It's just I think better when I've got a fag."

Harry considered that for a moment. Smokers die younger. Fuck it, what did he have to live for?

"Sure, if you give me one." he said.

Looking surprised, Dudley offered him the packet, handed him a lighter, and watched as he lit up then, accepting the lighter back, lit up his own.

"You know what I think, Harry?" Dudley said. "I think you gotta go on the warpath like the Indians and go stomp the bastards who pulled this crap like how Montgomery stomped the Jerries. You need tanks and flamethrowers, and like Uzis and Kalashnikovs and stuff. Hey Harry, there's these like books Grandpa wanted me to read when I was little, and I think you'll really dig them, c'mon." He stood up and, trailing a cloud of tobacco smoke, headed through to his room.

Having rooted around among assorted piles of books, broken toys and computer games for a few moments, he came out with a dog-eared volume which he handed to Harry.

The cover showed a Spitfire fighter aircraft, from above and to the right, with a Messerschmidt going down in flames in the background;  
topping it off was the title of the book, 'Spitfire Parade', by one Captain W.E Johns.

"I think you'll dig it." Dudley said. "It's about this dude in the second world war who like flies planes and stuff, and I think it'll give you ideas."

--

**Disclaimer: Turn out those lights! Don't you know there's a war on?  
**

**The Holy Testament of Dobby:  
Per Arcana ad Astra**

A Doghead13 fanfic

Written & produced by Calum J Doghead13' Wallace

Preread by the CaerAzkaban Yahoo group & KuroNeko

Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH

This is not a drill.

--

**Chapter 1: Grant me Wings, that I might Fly.  
(In which plots are plotted, and Hermione J Granger has a rather fishy surprise.)  
**  
A week passed as Harry drowned his sorrows in the roar of Rolls-Royce Merlin engines, the chatter of machine guns, the wind beneath wings, and the eternal duel of fighter versus fighter, pilot versus pilot, plane versus plane. Movie after movie was watched; Dudley's copy of The Dambusters' was nearly worn to the bone. Coughing at cigarette smoke was replaced by the constant presence of a half-smoked dog-end; much beer was drunk, and slowly the Second World War ingrained itself into his mind. In the time when he wasn't reading Spike Milligan or Len Deighton or Douglas Bader, he was assembling a complete picture of World War Two, muggle and wizarding side-by-side for the first time in human history. The war against Nazi Germany had been concurrent with the war against Grindlewold's Ahnernerbe, and careful study of available records had revealed something Harry found very important.

The statement that many Wizarding properties within Europe had been destroyed by unknown means' on dates that the muggle records listed air raids or artillery barrages in those areas. Apparently, falling objects – whether bombs or artillery shells – did not discriminate between things with or without muggle-repelling charms as they lacked things like perception and senses to be meddled with – just a dirty great chunk of steel and explosives going in a generally downward direction – and a half ton of high explosives worked just as well on a magical target as it did on a mundane target. Combined with the stunning tales he was reading and watching – tales of machines that flew higher and swifter than even his Firebolt, machines studded with guns and bloated with bombs – ideas began to percolate within the young wizard's mind, and soon he had arrived at a significant idea as he looked into the technical details of those aged aircraft.

There are few things a gunsight can do that an omniocular cannot, and quite a few things that an omniocular can do that it takes a hell of an expensive gunsight to emulate. Looking into the function and limitations of a machine gun gave him big ideas involving cooling charms and expanded spaces such as that one would find within a magical trunk. He studied bomb loads, and got ideas involving expanded rooms and feather-light charms. He studied ignition circuits and was stumped.

Finally, he realised that there was something he needed if he was going to get this show in the air. Something magical. Something he could trust. Someone who knew how to get a motor running, even under the influence of a supercharged magical field.

He needed Sirius Black.

It was two days before he got his opportunity. He was meandering around in the garden, smoking a cigarette and thinking about how to get a predictable spark off magic rather than a spark plug (how in Merlin's name would one arrange the timing and throttles?) when a thud and muffled curse arose from among the bushes, in a voice he vaguely recognised. That lurid-haired girl who'd been with Moody when they picked him up prior to that fake-out of a trial.

"Tonks, isn't it?" he asked, leaning against a tree.

"Uh, yeah. Oww, damnit." Said a pained and annoyed voice from the bushes.

"Couldja do something for me?" he asked.

"What sort of something?"

"Well, I want to send Sirius a letter, but I'm not sure if someone's intercepting my owl." Harry admitted. He'd tried sending Sirius letters by Hedwig three times, and never got a reply. Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, and three times is enemy action, or so he'd heard.

"Sure." Tonks said, and he heard her scrambling to her feet.

Nodding, he ripped one of the few blank page out of the notebook he'd been using to jog down ideas, scrawled a quick note asking about ignition, folded it up, and passed it into the bush.

"Thanks." He said.

"No prob, I'll pass it to him once I get off shift." Tonks said, and Harry nodded and went mooching back over to the house, stubbed his cigarette out on the lid of the wheelie bin, and headed for his room, stopping dwelling on ignition and returning his thoughts to cooling machine guns and aircraft cannons.

It was another week before he got a reply. Once more, he was in the garden, this time laying on his chest and jotting down thoughts on his big list of things he needed to know. He'd just circled the phrase, Can a Repario work on an old plane?', when he became aware of someone moving around in the bushes.

"Hey, prongslet." Said a very welcome voice.

"Sirius." He said with a smile, rolling over on his back.

Footprints appeared in the grass as the invisibility-cloaked escaped convict came out the bushes, followed by a bum-print as the man sat down, then the grinning face of Sirius Black was visible as he pulled his cloak away from his head.

"Planning on building a bike, eh Harry?" Sirius asked.

Harry shook his head and vaguely gestured in the direction of the house. "My cousin gave me an idea." He said. "He said he reckons I need to get really good at what he calls, Duffing stuff up', and he reckoned that planes are the best way to do that… You know what planes are, right?"

"Muggle flying machines, yeah. But how'd one of those help you beat the bad guys?"

Harry chuckled. Sirius was more knowledgeable about muggle matters than most wizards, but was still pretty badly uninformed.

"A plane – even an old plane – can fly higher and faster than the fastest racing broom in the world." He said. "There's a type of plane that's called a bomber. What it does is it carries a whole load of bombs – that's like a really huge muggle version of a blasting hex – and drops them from high up on places you need to blow to bits." He sat up. "I just gotta go get something."

With that, he dashed off, leaving his notebook laying on the lawn. After a moment's hesitation, Sirius picked it up and gave it a curious look.

The top page was covered in a mixture of doodling, random diagrams, and musings. After a few moments, he recognised the biggest diagram for what it was. He'd seen it's like before – it was a diagram of a muggle engine's ignition circuit, but he hadn't know there was types that had twelve spark plugs. He'd had enough problems with the two on his hog.

Harry came jogging back out the house, holding a pair of big ring- binders, which he laid on the lawn; he opened the top one.

The top page was an old black-and-white photograph of a muggle aircraft in flight, and it was a type Sirius had never seen before. Huge and gnarly, with things he thought might be the weapons muggles called guns poking out here and there, four propellers whirling on it's wings, and other such aircraft visible in the background.

"Have a read through this, Sirius." Harry said. "I've been looking at stuff about the muggle World War Two, which was going on at the same time as the war with Grindlewald, and I spotted something very interesting…"

And so Sirius read, having passed the notebook back.

Sirius Orion Black was a very intelligent man. Not the most intelligent Marauder, that accolade went to Remus Lupin, but he'd been able to make enough sense of muggle technology to adapt his bike on his own. He swiftly spotted the connection Harry had noticed, and it made him laugh out loud.

"So you're saying the German branch of the Malfoys got blown up by muggles trying to blow up other muggles?" he asked with a chortle.

Harry nodded. "That's exactly what I'm saying. Kinda poetic really, that there was a tank factory right across the road from them. Then look at the stuff about the London Blitz. Did you know there's hardly a building in Diagon Alley that's older than fifty years old, because they weren't enforcing blackout, and the German pilots were using the Alley's lights as a Start Bombing Here' marker when it was too cloudy to see the moonlight on the Thames?"

"Figures… Harry, where are you going to get a plane, how are you going to enchant it without having a wand, and who's going to fly it?"

"I was hoping you'd help me with the enchanting it. Us wrongfully- convicted type people gotta stick together, right? And I guess there's a load of wrecks still laying around in the English Channel. I figured once I get hold of a new wand I'll head out there and use Point Me charms and a bubble-head charm to find a few wrecks, then shrink em and bring em back."

"So… how are you planning on getting a new wand?" Sirius asked.

Harry smirked, reached into his vest pocket, and fished something out.

It was a feather. Not just any feather – it's colours seemed to be that of fire, flickering slightly as it sat there.

"Fawkes dropped this in my room the other day." He said. "I figure I should be able to put together a wand myself. It probably won't be a very good wand, but it'll do the trick. Wood's easy to get, and I figure there can't be a huge difference between making a wand and making a pencil – you're just putting wand core inside it rather than pencil lead inside it. Take a stick the right sort of size and shape, split it in half down the middle, hollow out a compartment in the centre the feather will fit into when it's all squished up, then glue it all together. I think."

Sirius slowly nodded. "Yeah, that'd work. I actually did much the same after I broke out the slammer, but mine was held together by Sellotape. It was pretty crap as wands go, but it did the trick. All you need is the right sort of core, any old wood will do the job but the sort your real wand was is best, put it all together, and it'll sort-of work. Not as well as a properly crafted wand, but we can get you one of those after we get this bullshit conviction overturned. So, what about pilots for your flying machine? Who do you know who's crazy enough to jump into a fifty-year-old bucket of rust held together with spit and prayers?"

Harry frowned. Sirius grinned at his expression, and handed him what seemed to be the handwritten manuscript of a book, and a small  
silver-framed mirror.

"Think about it, Harry. Anyway, this is something I and your mother put together round about the time when you were born. Part of it's about how I got my bike to work like it did. You just gotta remember, Reparios don't work quite right on complex pieces of machinery unless you know every part, but I found you can alter healing spells to do the job. Oh, and the mirror's the hub mirror of a set of two-way mirrors, you can use it to get in touch with me  
without any headmasters knowing. I gotta get moving before Dumbledore realises I'm not at Number 12. Keep in touch, okay Harry? Love ya."

"… yeah, love ya too, Sirius." Harry said.

With a grin and a wink, the escaped convict disappeared.

Harry shambled back into the house and to his room, thinking. Who had Sirius meant? The Weasely twins? No. Molly would never forgive him if he…

"Dobby." He suddenly realised, without really noticing he'd said it out loud.

Pop.

"Mr Harry Potter Sir is calling for Dobby?"

"Dobby! I was just thinking about you." Harry said.

"Dobby is guessing that, Mr Harry Potter Sir. Mr Harry Potter Sir is calling Dobby's name, so Dobby is thinking Mr Harry Potter Sir is wanting Dobby." The little guy frowned. "Mr Dumbly-Door Sir is saying Mr Harry Potter Sir is not wanting Dobby to be bothering Mr Harry Potter Sir, but when Dobby is hearing Mr Harry Potter Sir calling for Dobby, Dobby is coming. Mr Harry Potter Sir is not being angry?"

"Nah, nah. Well, actually, yeah, but I'm not angry at you, I'm angry at the Ministry and bloody Dumbledore and that fucking twat Tom goddamned Marvolo fucking Riddle."

"Dobby is thinking Mr Dumbly-Door is being a very silly person." Dobby whispered, glancing around to make sure nobody was there to hear him saying bad things about the Headmaster of Hogwarts. "And Dobby is thinking them Ministry peoples is needing heads examined. And Dobby is knowing Mouldyvorts is being very very very very very very bad person because Mouldyvorts is trying to do very very very very very very bad things to the great and noble and magnificent wizard Mr Harry Potter Sir."

("O great and noble wizard!" The house elf Dobby cried. "Thy foes know not their blasphemy, yet if it is your will, punished they shalt be!")

"I'm not all I'm cracked up to be, Dobby." Harry said. "I'm a guy who's just had his wand snapped for trying to defend himself."

(And the Great Wizard Harry Potter thus spake: Forsooth, my child. I am but a man who hath been gravely wronged." Ever is the Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir humble, and ever does he trust in those who know his great and noble truths.)

"Dobby is knowing that." Dobby gravely replied. "And Dobby is wanting to help Mr Harry Potter Sir make things right and proper again."

(And Dobby did bow down. "O great and noble wizard, this mere elf beseecehth thee! Allow thy humble servant to aid thee in thine quest!")

"I… Dobby, you've got no idea how much that means to me right now. No idea at all." Harry said, shaking his head. "I… there's something I want you to see."

And so he headed for Dudley's room, trailed by the nervous elf. Dudley was lounging around on his bed and playing some Doom 2.

"Hey, cuz. Woah, trippy – who's your mate?"

"Dobby is being Dobby." Dobby said. "Dobby is a house elf."

"This is Dobby. He's a good friend of mine." Harry said, managing to ignore the way his statement made Dobby burst into tears and cling to Harry's leg. "And, well, I reckon he can really help me with this war thing… I wanna show him The Dambusters', can I get a shot of your telly?"

"Bloody ell Harry, that's what, the third time today?" Dudley chortled. "Hey, tell you what, I'll go scrounge some beers, you guys make yourselves at home and stick the movie on."

"Thanks, cuz."

Dudley grinned and waddled out; Harry paused Dudley's game, changed channels to receive from the video player, loaded up his favourite video, hit play, and sat back.

"Watch this, Dobby." He said. "It's awesome."

(And lo, the Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir rendered unto Dobby a splendid and glorious vision; a vision of great metal beasts of the skies, a vision of nobility and might; and hark thee, for the vision it was named The Dambusters, and of the great birds of metal it told.)

As the credits rolled, Harry turned to Dobby.

"Listen, Dobby. I've figured something out, and I need your help. You've seen the bombers; do you think you could fly one?"

"Dobby is not knowing, but Dobby is thinking Dobby can learn."

"Right. Well, if you go and track down some RAF and USAF bases, or maybe where they teach BA pilots to fly, and you're really stealthy, I think you should be able to learn without anyone knowing you're there. I'm going to be seeing what I can do to track down old bombers and get them ready to fly again. You know about Voldemort and everything; I think it's time those pureblood bastards learned about air power."

"Dobby will do this for you, Mr Harry Potter Sir. And Dobby will not let the peoples see Dobby."

"Good, good." Harry muttered, nodding distractedly. "And, uh, Dobby, are there, well, any other house elves like you, who haven't like, got any masters or what-not and might, you know, be able to help us do this?"

"Dobby does not know, but Dobby will find out." Dobby gravely promised, nodding his head, his ears wobbling around.

(And the Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir spake unto Dobby, and he quoth, Hark thee, for thou hast pleased me greatly in thine true and noble conduct, yet I must ask more of thee, my child. For a terrible beast is upon us; corrupt the world is, and the people they are silly buggers, like them what the wools and mutton comes off. Hark thee, O Dobby, for thou must go forth and seeketh the ways of Undercarriage and of Flaps, of Joystick and of Rudder Pedals, and yae, of Throttle. Seeketh thee in the places of Arrayeff and of Yooessayeff, yea, and of Beeay. Seeketh thee this wisdom, for mine great birds of metal resteth yet in the deeps of wet, and once more must we awaken them, that their might may aid us in the great and noble undertaking to come. Also speaketh thee to thine oppressed brothers and sisters, and bring to them mine Holy words, that they might join thee in thy enlightenment, for I name thee as my first and true Prophet.)

"Dobby is wondering one other thing, Mr Harry Potter Sir?" Dobby ventured.

"What's up?" Harry asked, concerned.

"Is… Is Mr Harry Potter Sir wanting Dobby to be Mr Harry Potter Sir's house elf? Is just that Dobby is having more magics if Dobby is having master."

"I dunno if I could do that, Hermione would have my guts for garters."

"Dobby will tell Miss Grangy Ma'am about how having nice masters is good thing for house elvses." Dobby said with a sharp nod, and disappeared.

"Aw, shit." Harry groaned. "What am I getting into this time…? Oh shit, Hermione's gonna kill me…"

(In those times, the Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir's consort, the Marvellous Miss Grangy Ma'am, she who loves house elfses but didn't understand house elfses, was not the Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir's consort, and the Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir was very sad, because the world was not it's right and proper shape. The Marvellous Miss Grangy Ma'am did not understand what a great and wonderful thing a good and true and noble master like the Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir is for house elfses, for she saw only that the house elfses must be loyal to their masters, and saw only unjustice.  
And verily she did rise up in fury and decry that unjustice; and the house elfses did love her for it, but it was a love of exasperation, for she did not know of what she spoke.)

"Dobby is saying hello, Miss Grangy Ma'am. Dobby is wanting to talk to Miss Grangy Ma'am about house elfses and bonds."

Talk about ways to put Hermione Jane Granger in a bad mood.

(And so the prophet Dobby went to the Marvellous Miss Grangy, she of the words that are very hard to say, and spoke to her at great length, and told her of all the wonderful things that a good and true and noble master like the Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir means to house elfses.)

"What about them?" Hermione said, not wanting to snap at the elf despite how furious the subject made her.

"It is being very complicerated, Miss Grangy Ma'am." Dobby said, hopping up on top of her desk and giving her a droopy-eared solemn look. "Miss Grangy is telling Dobby, is house elfses letting wizards be putting bonds on house elfses if bonds is always being bad things? We is not knowing big wordses like Miss Grangy Ma'am, but we is not silly buggers like them what yous is getting the wools and mutton off of. House elfses is being quite strong, Miss Grangy Ma'am. We is not being as strong as wizards and witches, and we is nothing likes as strong as Mr Harry Potter Sir, but we is being strong enough. Wards is not stopping house elfses going in and out. We is going where we is wanting to go. Is Miss Grangy Ma'am thinking house elfses can't go away if house elfses is wanting to go away? Bonds is only happens if elfses is letting wizards do bond thing. If elfses is having good bond, elfses is being able to use little bit of masters magics, and all magics that is from masters places and properties, and it is very good."

But Hermione wasn't in the mood to listen. She didn't have a whole lot of flaws, but her worst was that she was, frankly, an intellectual snob.

"You really don't know what you're talking about, Dobby." She said.

Dobby looked extremely put out.

"Miss Grangy Ma'am is being rude." He said.

"Sometimes the truth isn't good manners, Dobby." Hermione told him. "The truth is, you're an escaped slave, and all your people are slaves."

"Miss Grangy Ma'am is not being listen to Dobby whatever Dobby is saying." Dobby said with a sigh, shaking his head. "So Dobby is go and work out what Dobby is saying to Miss Grangy Ma'am that Miss Grangy Ma'am is listen to, because Miss Grangy Ma'am is makes Mr Harry Potter Sir sad."

He vanished with a pop.

"… what the…?" Hermione muttered, running that through her mind again. Filtered through her prejudice against house elf bonds, and coloured by the fact she frankly thought house elves were a bit stupid, she put two and two together and got a grand total of cabbage.

She was worried as Hell about her best friend, Harry Potter. And, as she always did, her instinct on being worried about something was to turn to any available authority figure – especially if that figure was Albus Dumbledore.

Dumbledore had left one of the school owls (a barn owl by the name of Rupert) with Hermione over the summer, and had her staying in regular contact with him. He'd been especially adamant that, if Harry were to contact her, she was to let Dumbledore know. Dumbledore had carefully explained that he was awfully worried about Harry, because Harry had seen some horrible things, and then there was all that unpleasentness with the Ministry, and, and, and… And Hermione had listened, like she always did when dealing with an authority figure.

She decided that Dobby's visit was probably something Dumbledore would want to know about, especially the hyperactive elf's cryptic comment about making Harry sad'.

So she penned a quick (by her standards) note, fastened it to Rupert's leg, and asked the owl to take it to Dumbledore.

Much to Hermione's surprise, as the owl exited the window it suddenly vanished upwards with a startled squawk; a few stray feathers drifted down past her windowsill.

"What the…?"

(But the Marvellous Miss Grangy Ma'am had turned her back upon the truth of the Great Wizard Harry Potter, and had listened too much to the words of the very silly Mr Dumbly-Door Sir, and allowed her faith to become shaken. And so the prophet Dobby did shake his head, and the prophet Dobby did resolve to bring a great and true and noble solution to the sorrow of the Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir.)

--

Winky the house elf was not having a good day. She had been having not-good days for some time, ever since she'd mucked up and been clothed for it.

What she wanted to be doing was moping and attempting to drown her sorrows, but something kept distracting her.

That something was the very weird house elf called Dobby.

They were in the house elf quarters at Hogwarts, and Dobby was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the room on top of a visibly unimpressed owl. His eyes were closed, and he was making loud zooming and banging noises.

"BrrrrrrrRRrrRRrrrrrr ratatatatatatat BOOM!" Dobby said.

"What is Dobby doing?" Winky asked.

Dobby opened an eye and squinted at her.

"Dobby is meditating and prayer. BrrrrrrrRRrrrrrrRRRR BOOM ratatatatatat brrrrrrRrrrrRRr."

"Winky is thinking meditating is supposed to be being quiets."

"BOOM ratatatatatat! Is new type meditating. BrrrrRRRrrrRRRRRRR!"

--

Harry was just beginning to read Sirius's notes about the adaptation of Harley-Davidson electrics to allow them to withstand the effects of anti-lightning wards when he got the strangest feeling.

Something told him that Hermione was passing information on to Dumbledore, though he was darned if he knew where such a daft idea had came from. He chuckled and shook his head, thinking about how they dealt with letters containing problematic information during the War – a black marker and a great big red Censored' stamp.

Shaking the idle fantasy off, Harry went back to his book, completely unaware of what had just began.

After all, he'd never been prayed to before, so how would he have had any idea what it felt like?

--

"Aha! Now the Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir is sending Dobby wisom and Dobby is knowing what to do!" Dobby suddenly declared. He grabbed the owl and vanished with a pop, leaving a slightly drunk and very bemused Winky to contemplate the spot where the hyper elf had been.

"… Winky is wondering what all thats is being about." She muttered.

--

Hermione was interrupted from her book by a tremendous CRASH as the owl came careening back through the window. The unfortunate bird landed down the side of the sofa in a cloud of feathers, and her letter went skittering across the floor.

Collecting it, she was shocked to find that virtually every word (even her address at the head of the parchment) had been scored out with a big fat black marker, and Senserded' was written in wobbly handwriting in the centre of each page.

There was an extra page too; this one bore, in the same wobbly handwriting:

"Dere Miss Grangy Maam

Yous Werds is being Sensereded, because yous Werds is being Kareless and we is all knowing that Kareless Werds is Costs Lyfs!! Kareless Werds is mayking Areyplayns gets Shotted Down and Valyerbl Pielots gets Ded!!

Is yous Wants to be cing Swastickers abuv the Bukkyking Ham Pallers place?? Yous Lites they is Litered and yous is Not Nows there is being a Wor On!! Wer is yous Arpers?? Yous is not having Flakks or Serchyliters and yous Air Rayd Syrine is Rusty bekos yous has Forgetted Are Superyoryoryty!!

Yous is being a Norty Person and if yous is not Stopps tryng to Send Klasyfykated Werds to Sylly Buggers wot Chews Lemony Thyns and sits abowt wiv Rilly Norty Persons wot hav Greesy Hare we is being has to comes rounds and Smacks yous Bum lots and lots and lots and lots and lots So Ther!!

Yous is being very Karefule wot yous is Ryts becos yous is mayking The Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir very very very very Sad!!

Sinseerly

Ther Wor Departymenters!!

Wes is Meens It!!"

--

Three days had passed as, between increasingly common bouts of distracted imagining about house elves with conundrums, Harry studied the treasure-trove of information Sirius had given him. He'd had multiple discussions with the man, over the mirrors, going further and further into depth about engines, and getting so technical it largely flew over Sirius's head.

He had to hand it to his mother; Lily Potter had been an absolute genius. Reading between the lines, he gathered that it had been his mother's childhood dream to be a scientist; her primary role-model had been, for much of her life, Marie Curie.

So, on finishing at Hogwarts, she'd began to study a forbidden art; technomancy. Largely banned by the government (who couldn't tell the big difference between a nose-biting teacup and a toaster altered to run on magic instead of electricity) this branch of magic had at the time been unnamed. Lily had closely examined (and deciphered) the workings of the Knight Bus, and had been disgusted to discover that it was in fact a barely-modified and rather elderly London bus that had been converted in ways that were, for anyone but the Ministry, illegal. Likewise, so-called Wizarding Wireless' was simply a very normal VHF radio with some scrambling on it's signal and said signal propagating through the Floo network; the owners of Wizarding Wireless (the Blacks) had a legal monopoly on the device, having stolen it from it's now-dead inventor. She'd torn several Wizarding Wireless sets apart and worked out what made them tick, then applied it to many and myriad other electrical devices, most of which were probably still in the basement of the house in Godric's Hollow.

And there was indeed an entire chapter dedicated to the engine modifications on Sirius's bike. The machine had what amounted to mechanical ignition; essentially, each spark plug was replaced with something markedly similar to an extremely short wand that, when pushed down, produced a high-tension electrical spark almost identical to that produced by an ordinary spark plug.

It seemed Lily had experimented with altering a normal electrical ignition circuit (actually on a lawn mower) to operate within the area of the lightning wards at the Potter home (which were, it seemed, the main problem with getting ignition to do it's stuff) and had some success, simply by shielding the electrics with a layer of thin dragon hide; the magic-resistant properties of dragon hide prevented the wards interfering with the ignition circuits.

When he read that, Harry wrote Dragon Hide' on the top sheet of his notebook, and underlined it three times, then circled it for good measures. It seemed the stuff might be exactly what he was looking for.

He'd pretty much digested it all by the third day after his godfather's visit. He still hadn't heard a peep from any of his friends or the Order, despite having written to most of his friends – just brief ramblings about inconsequential stuff, nothing important, more a Hi-I'm-still-alive than anything else – and was beginning to think about how exactly to trace whether someone was intercepting Hedwig when Dobby returned.

The house-elf's apparel had changed rather dramatically in those three days. Gone was the swathes of mismatched clothing and stack of hats; instead, he was dressed like a miniature version of a stereotypical World War 2 pilot. He had a leather flying hat with goggles pushed up on his forehead, a brown leather bomber jacket, denim jeans (presumably intended for a small child) and a pair of large stompy boots. And oh boy did he look pleased with himself.

(And lo, the prophet Dobby did seek of the sacred wisdom of the pilot. He did seek in the places of Arrayeff and of Yooessayeff,  
yea, and of Beeaye, and he did seek also in the places of Beebeeemmeff, and of Seeayeff. He did seek in the holy land of Duxford, yeah, and of Imperial War Museum. And lo, in those wondrous and holy places, the prophet Dobby did find enlightenment, and so the prophet Dobby did go forth and speak among the elves, to tell them of the Way of Air Superiority and the magnificent and sacred words of the Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir.)

"Dobby is learning to be pilot, Mr Harry Potter Sir." Dobby said. "Dobby is thinking Dobby is knows how to fly the bombers now, Mr Harry Potter Sir. And Dobby is talking to other elvses. Thems is mostly saying Dobby is being silly, but three elvses is being fascinated when Dobby is showing them books about Mr Biggleses Sir and Mr Spikey Millygan Sir."

(And at last, upon the third day, the prophet Dobby did come before the Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir, and he did bow and he did salute, and he did say, "O Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir! I have sought in the places of which thou spake, O Great Wizard, and thy sacred wisdom have I found! Bretheren also have I found, they that recognise thy holy works, tho they yet not be ready to become thy Pilots, they are sound and sturdy in mind and body! O Great Wizard, this humble elf beseecehth thee, show me what is to be done, that I might in thy services work!")

"Nice one, Dobby." Harry said, surprised and impressed. "Uh, do I have to worry about Hermione skinning me?"

(And the Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir was well pleased, for now his one and true Prophet, the prophet Dobby, was upon the path of enlightenment. But vexed was he, for still his consort, the Marvellous Miss Grangy Ma'am, she of the words that are very hard to say, had not returned to the path of the Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir, and the world was not it's right and proper shape.)

"Dobby is talking to Miss Grangy Ma'am." Dobby said, his ears drooping. "But Miss Grangy Ma'am is not listening. Miss Grangy Ma'am is saying Dobby is not knows what Dobby is talking about."

(And the prophet Dobby did quail, for to the Marvellous Miss Grangy Ma'am, she of the words that are very hard to say, had not listened when to she he tried to bring enlightenment.)

Harry frowned. "Uh, any idea has she got any of my letters?" he asked.

"Dobby is not knowing, but Dobby is not thinks so." Dobby said, scratching his head. "Dobby is not smelling smells of Mr Harry Potter Sir's owl in Miss Grangy Ma'am house."

Harry nodded thoughtfully. "Shit… I thought so. Damnit, I wish I could…"

"What is Mr Harry Potter Sir wishing?" Dobby asked.

"I wish I could understand what Hedwig's been trying to tell me." Harry admitted.

"Oh. Dobby is not thinking Dobby is being able to help with that."

"Aw, that's okay, not like anyone can." Harry sighed and picked up a blank sheet of paper, and started scrawling a quick note to Hermione.

Once he was done, Hedwig came over and stuck out her leg.

"I'm sorry, girl." Harry told her. "But until we work out how come my letters aren't getting through, I'm going to need to have these delivered another way."

"Prrek?" Hedwig queried, drooping a bit.

"Dobby, please take this to Hermione." Harry said, handing the elf the note. "And please wait until she's written a reply so you can bring it back, OK?"

(And the Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir was most vexed, and to the prophet Dobby he entrusted a most sacred and holy Classified Top Secret message, that the prophet Dobby was to bear to the Marvellous Miss Grangy Ma'am.)

Dobby snapped to somewhat sloppy attention, saluted, said, "Dobby is doing this for Mr Harry Potter Sir!" and vanished.

--

Hermione Jane Granger had of course completed her summer homework in short order as soon as she'd got home from Hogwarts. Then she'd started in on the assorted muggle correspondence courses she intended to complete over the summer.

She was just getting really involved in her physics course when an unexpected voice piped up from the region of the window:

"Dobby is bringing Miss Grangy Ma'am Classificated Top Secret very important message from Mr Harry Potter Sir! Bad peoples is Intercepticating courier owlses, so Mr Harry Potter Sir is sending Dobby on Mission for deliver Classificated Top Secret very important message to Miss Grangy Ma'am!"

Hermione was so surprised by this sudden outburst that she nearly fell out of her seat.

Dobby was stood there, on her window sill, in a rough approximation of at-attention, and saluting her with one hand while offering a sheet of paper with the other. By this time, Rupert the owl had taken one look at the elf and hidden under Hermione's bed.

"… um, thanks Dobby." Hermione said, gawking slightly at the little elf's elf-sized pilot outfit as she accepted the letter.

--

Hi, Hermione.

I'm pretty sure Hedwig's being intercepted by someone when she tries to deliver my letters, and I haven't had any letters from anyone since that bullshit trial, and while I can't say much about Ron, the idea of you not grabbing the chance to write anything seems a bit weird.

So I've decided to get Dobby to take this to you. Hedwig's probably gonna get really pissed off at me, but oh well.

Anyway, on other stuff I've been looking at ways I can really scare the crap out Voldemort and his lot, and (thanks to my cousin, who's shaped up and turned into a decent bloke since that scare with the Dementors) I decided to look at how I can apply some muggle-style solutions to the problem. I now need to locate a disused airbase from the Second World War that's still not got anything built on top of it, and some abandoned hulks of wartime planes. About making bombs and rockets, do you think it'd be a good idea to talk to Fred and George? And can you think of any ideas that'd really make the DE lot wet themselves?

Love,  
Harry.

PS: Don't use an owl to reply to this, that's what Dobby's waiting for.

--

Hermione read Harry's letter three times, then penned a brief (by her standards; it only took three feet of parchment) reply, waited until Dobby had popped away, wrote a very short note to Dumbledore asking if he could look into whatever was happening to Harry's mail, coaxed Rupert out of under the bed, gave the owl the letter to Dumbledore, and got a horrible sinking feeling when the luckless bird once more vanished upwards with a squawk and a cloud of feathers.

(The Marvellous Miss Grangy Ma'am, she of the words that are very hard to say, did read of the Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir's sacred writings, but not yet was she enlightened, for the very silly Mr Dumbly-Door Sir did hold the mind of the Marvellous Miss Grangy Ma'am, she of the words that are very hard to say, and her fears were not yet allayed. The Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir's secrets she sought to bear unto the very silly Mr Dumbly-Door Sir, and the prophet Dobby was afraid, for surely if this blasphemy was not ended, the wrath of the Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir would be  
terrible to behold.)

"Ohhhh dear." She said.

Shaking off her feeling of imminent doom, she went back to her textbook.

Five minutes passed in peace and quiet, then Rupert came hurtling back into the room in yet another cloud of feathers (he was starting to look a bit baldy) accompanied by her letter to Dumbledore, which once more had pretty much it's entire contents scrubbed out with black marker.

"Shit." Hermione said.

"TURNS OUTS THEM LIGHTSES!" A chorus of squeaky voices bellowed. "IS YOUS NOT KNOWING THERE IS BEING A WAR ON?"

A trio of very oddly-dressed house elves came flying in the window. They were clad in khaki shirts and trousers, gas masks, and black Tommy-style tin hat' metal helmets with the letters A R P' in white on the fronts, and they were ferociously brandishing what appeared to be kippers.

Hermione went off the side of her chair, and grabbed it in a desperate attempt to ward the rampaging elves off.

The trio of gas-masked elves laid into her with the kippers, bellowing things like, Careless wordses is costs liveses!" and "Turns outs them lightses!' and "Yous is making the Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir very sad!'.

(And thus it was that the Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir's most Holy Arpers, they that guard the Faithful against the Perils of the Demon Blitz in their search for Enlightenment and Pilothood, did come to the Marvellous Miss Grangy Ma'am, and they did Slap her with the Wet Kippers, and they did tell her of the Error of her Ways, and they did Punish her most Sorely for her Unknowing Blasphemy against the Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir, that she might know her faith once more.)

--

"Oi cuz, someone phoned for ya. A bird, and she sounds pretty skelping mad."

"Thanks, Dudley." Harry said, accepting the cordless phone handset his cousin was vaguely waving at him.

"Hi, Harry here."

"Harry James Potter, you have got a lot of bloody explaining to do!" came a resoundingly pissed-off Hermione Granger voice. "I have just been jumped on by three house elves in gas masks and slapped with wet kippers to the point I can't sit down, and from what they were yelling it's YOUR FAULT!"

Harry removed the handset from his ear and gave it a quizzical look.

"What." he said. "The. Fuck?"

**--End Chapter--**

AN - Well, here's my latest effort. Probably not quite what y'all were expecting from me next, but I needed a break from Top Dog, so...

Cheers,  
Cal.


	2. Chapter 2

**This ain't no slash fic.**

**This ain't no self-insert fic neither.**

**This is The Book of Dobby.**

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

_'Kill for gain or shoot to maim_

_But we don't need a reason_

_The Golden Goose is on the loose_

_And never out of season_

_Blackened pride still burns inside_

_This shell of bloody treason_

_Here's my gun for a barrel of fun_

_For the love of the living dead_

_The killer's breed or the demon's seed_

_The glamour, the fortune, the pain_

_Go to war again, blood is freedom's stain_

_Don't you pray for my soul any more...'_

- Iron Maiden, '2 Minutes to Midnight', -Powerslave-

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

As she got off the phone, having had Harry desperately trying to placate her, Hermione was a very annoyed young lady with a very sore posterior. Harry's blatant open-mouth-before-engaging-brain remark about kissing it better really hadn't helped.

Having got a bag of frozen peas out of her parents' deep-freeze and stuffed it down the back of her tights, she put most of her collection of cushions on her chair, and gingerly seated herself.

Ow.

She stood up, glared in the direction the trio of rampaging house elves had gone, picked up her notepad and textbooks, and went and laid on her front on her bed and tried to distract herself with quantum physics.

After about half an hour, her backside was quite numb and rather damp, so she put the now not-so-frozen peas back in the freezer and started rooting around for another bag of frozen veg, and it was then that she became very distracted from thoughts of house elves with kippers by a horrible realisation.

Managing to forget the pain in her arse, she ran back up to her room and started wildly casting around.

"Dobby? Can you hear me, Dobby?"

No answer.

"Um, can any house elves hear me? Hello?"

Hermione was beginning to panic. Then she remembered some scraps of house elf rantings.

"ARP? Can any ARP hear me?"

"Miss Grangy Ma'am is calling for the Arperers?" said a gas-masked tin-hatted elf, jumping out of under her bed. Rupert the owl went and his behind her desk.

"Um, hi." Hermione said. "Um, I'm kinda worried and I need to get in touch with Harry... I just remembered, I'd written his home address on the envolopes of the letters I tried to send him, and since I guess it's baddies who're stealing his post, well, um, I don't really think Privet Drive is safe for Harry to be at any more."

The elf contemplated her for a moment with the blank glower of it's gas mask, then nodded gravely. Well, Hermione thought it was a grave sort of nod. It's rather difficult to 'read' someone who's wearing a gas mask, especially when you're an Aspie kid so body language might as well be double Dutch.

"Miss Grangy Ma'am is giving F- is giving Arper Classificated Top Secret very important message for the Great Wizard Mr Harry Potter Sir, and Arper is taking Miss Grangy Ma'am's Classificated Top Secret very important message to the Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir, and Natzerys is not ever know that Classificated Top Secret very important message is being sended, because Arperses is the Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir's Arperses, and the Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir's Arperses is not doing things that is making the Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir sad." The elf said.

"... right." Hermione said, parsing all that as 'Yes'.

She scribbled down a very abrupt note, and handed it to the elf.

It read:

'Harry.

Your home address was on each of the letters I tried to owl to you. I don't know who has them now, but I'm certain that, since they did not arrive in your hands, whoever it is cannot be friendly.

I'm frightened, Harry. You need to get out of there, and make sure there is nothing left at Privet Drive that you care about.

Hurry, Harry. There can't be much time.

(little squiggly heart)

Hermione.'

"This is being very very very very very very important communicitations!" the elf said, seeing what Hermione had written. He snatched it up. "Arper is going very quickly, Miss Grangy Ma'am!"

And then he vanished with the typical vanishing-house-elf pop.

Hermione continued fretting, then decided to write to Sirius and see if Rupert was willing to come out of behind the sofa.

She penned a quick note, then paused. How was she going to get this past those annoying house elves and not get another close encounter with kippers?

She grabbed a manilla envelope, stuffed the note into it, selected a big red pen, and scrawled, 'WAR DEPARTMENT. CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET. FOR EYES OF MR SIRIUS BLACK ONLY.' on the envelope.

"Um, Rupert, could you please take this to Sirius Orion Black?"

The owl doubtfully examined the envelope, then cautiously took it in his beak, poked his head out the window, peered around, and cannonball-jumped out.

Hermione was frankly unsurprised when Rupert vanished up with his now-trademark squawk and cloud of feathers. She selected her biggest and puffiest cushion, and stuffed it down the back of her tights.

"Oww."

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

**Disclaimer: Never start an ass-kicking contest with a porcupine.**

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

**The Holy Testament of Dobby.**

**Per Arcana ad Astra**

**A Doghead13 fanfic.**

**Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace.**

**Preread by the Caer Azkaban Yahoo group.**

**Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH**

**This is not a drill.**

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

**Chapter 2: I am the Chosen One.**

**(In which a plane is resurrected, and allegiance is pledged)**

"What is we doing with this?"

"It is being Classificated Top Secret and is being for eyes of Mr Sirius Padfeets Black Sir only. And Mr Sirius Padfeets Black Sir is knowing about wordses of the Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir, Dobby is says so, so it is being trues. So we is takes this to Mr Sirius Padfeets Black Sir. Gi- Other Arpers is keeping watching the Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir's Miss Grangy Ma'am, yes?"

"Oh yes. Arpers is keeping careful watch of Miss Grangy Ma'am and if Natserys is being shows up, Arpers is being Commanderatoe and is making with the Tommy Guns and the Stenses and making with the Shoot Bang Fire and is making the Natserys dead, oh yes."

The pair of gas-masked tin-hatted elves, one of whom was sitting on Rupert the owl's head, nodded to each other.

"Yous is turns out those lightses!" they chorused, and the one holding the owl vanished with a pop.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

Sirius Orion Black, orphan heir, escaped convict, big bad biker, technomancer, wrongfully-convicted Not-The-Secret-Keeper and only guy ever badassed enough to escape from Azkaban without outside assistance, was chilling out with a keg of Newkie Brown, a half-Q of Afghan Gold, some ham and mustard sandwiches, and a little Thin Lizzy.

Currently, between that, searching for assets for Harry's idea, and perusing the (horribly turgid) shelf-full of books of wizarding law within the library of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black, this was his most frequent pastime. Seriously. Possibly even Siriusly. He'd toked so much resin, chugged so much brew, and listened to so much rock-and-roll, in the last couple months he was no longer quite sure which end of his body his head belonged upon.

(He was pretty sure it belonged atop his neck. But he had his niggling doubts. After all, Severus Mercurio Snape's head was atop Severus Mercurio Snape's neck, and it most assuredly did not belong there.)

Thus it was that Sirius's reaction on having a gas-masked tin-hatted khaki-clad Sten-toting house elf fling a rather ruffled barn owl through the window was casual to say the least.

"Woah." he said. "Haven't seen anything like that since Lily got her first underage magic warning... oh man I've got the munchies. OI! KREACHER! MORE SANDWICHES, I'M STARVING!"

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

Hermione J Granger, age a couple of months short of sixteen, was one very freaked-out young lady.

For once in her life, she wasn't only freaked out about the insanity her best friend in the whole world (one Mr Harry J Potter) habitually got himself involved in through no discernible fault of his own.

Rather, she was currently freaking out both about the fact that said best friend's home address was now in the hands of parties unknown, and that she had very recently been firmly spanked with wet kippers by a trio of gibbering insane house elves and was expecting to be on the receiving end of an unwanted encore very soon.

Thus she was quite surprised when Dobby appeared on top of her desk, accompanied by a very upset Rupert the Owl coming careering through the window.

"Dobby is bringing Miss Grangy Ma'am another Classificated Top Secret very important message from Mr Harry Potter Sir! And Dobby is thinking Mr Rupert Owl is having Classificated Top Secret very important message for Miss Grangy Ma'am from Mr Sirius Padfeets Black Sir too." the maniac flying-hatted elf said.

"Thankyou, Dobby." Hermione said, glad not to see any kippers. Having accepted the elf's note, she turned and relieved the rather ruffled owl of the message that was strapped to his leg.

It took her a moment to decide which to look at first. Eventually, after a lot of internal worrying, she settled on Harry's.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

Hermione.

Thanks for the heads-up. I've sent Dobby to take a message to Sirius before he drops this off; hopefully Sirius knows someplace I can hole up until I get this ball rolling.

Dobby says there's some of what he calls 'Arperses' keeping an eye out for you, and he says they've got 'Tommy Gunses' and 'Stenses' and are ready to 'Be Commanderatoes'. I've got bugger all idea what that means, but Dobby reckons V's thugs will become dead if they try anything stupid. But all the same, I want you to promise me something.

With V. back, being my friend is a dangerous place to be. Especially for you since your parents are muggles. I don't want to see you get hurt, Hermione, so if anything happens, grab your parents and scream for the Arpers to evacuate you. (Dobby says that's the pre-arranged signal, and I guess he knows what he's talking about. He usually does)

Don't die, Hermione. And trust the elves, they're batshit insane but I'm starting to get the feeling they mean business.

Love ya,

Harry.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

As Hermione was reading Harry's letter, at the Murphy Brothers junkyard in Hull, bewilderment was reigning.

It had all begun when Tony Hammond, one of the guys who sorted out the good parts that they'd sell as used spares, had come hurrying into the site office with a highly confused look on his face.

"Jim," he said to one of the bosses, James 'Don't call me James' Murphy, "Someone's taken off with the entire pile of exhaust pipes."

"You what?" Jim asked, getting to his feet and ditching his issue of Playboy.

"Seriously, Jim." Tony said. "They've left all the mufflers, but they've grabbed every last downpipe. Darndest thing I ever saw."

Further investigation found that a remarkable quantity of scrap had been stolen overnight. Hundreds of yards of pipe. Sheet after sheet of salvaged steel. Miles upon miles of wire and rodding. And, oddly enough, every bedspring from the pile of knackered spring mattresses.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

Likewise, bewilderment was reigning in Hogwarts, certainly if your name was Albus P W B Dumbledore or Minerva K McGonagall. The suits of armour had all been vandalised. Every last one, the same way.

Dumbledore and McGonagall bemusedly contemplated the suit of armour. It (like all the rest) had a large circular hole in it's cuiraisse.

"Darndest thing I ever saw." McGonagall said.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

Meanwhile, in the house elf quarters of Hogwarts, several elves were cackling gleefully over their crafstmenship.

"Now we is having Stenses." Said Dobby.

"Is Dobby being sure elfses is not doing naughty things?" asked Twix.

"No, no, it is being for War Effortses." Dobby assured, looking in satisfaction at the huge pile of Sten guns and the even bigger pile of freshly-loaded magazines full of freshly-made hollowpoints. "Is being big big pile of stuff what muggleses is throwed away. Muggleses is being such wasteful peoples, they is throws away makingses of the Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir's Stenses. Why, Dobby is finding stuff what corditeses is made of poured in river."

"But is Dobby being sure that it is being okay that we is taking bitses of suitses of metalses and turns into tin hatses?"

"Dimmy is stopping being silly. It is being for War Effortses! Is Dimmy not knowing about Recycelerating? Yous is makes sure they is being sunk - yous is brings in yous junk! Wes is not steals, wes is REQUESTITION! It is being for War Effortses! Metalses is being very very very very very very very very important! What is Dimmy thinks gunses and bombses and bulletses and tin hatses and even the Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir's planeses is being made out of? It is all being metal, and it is being very important."

"Dimmy is now knows what Dobby is meanses." Dimmy the elf said, standing up a bit straighter.

"Good. You is keeps building lots of bulletses and boxes what bulletses is goes in until you is not has enough scrap."

"You is turns out them lightses." The elves reverentially chorused. "Is you not knowing there is being a war on?"

Then they got back to doing what house elves (and Marauders) do best.

Plotting mayhem.

Apart from Winky. She rose to her feet, swaying slightly, slugged a load from her bottle, swayed a bit more, and went swaying over to where Dobby was critically surveying the scene.

"Is this being things for boy elfses only?" she asked. "Or is girl elfses being allowed to join in?"

Dobby considered her. Butterbeeraholic. Run-down. Depressed. No self- worth. All the things the Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir hated to see in an elf. The Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir wanted all elves to be happy. He'd rather that the elves and Biggers he loved be happy than that the war be won. He'd said so, back in one of his bleaker moments, and Dobby was absolutely certain that the Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir loved all elves equally. He'd been visibly upset when he saw the state Winky was in. Not upset that a house elf dared get ratarsed, upset that Winky couldn't handle her life without strong drink.

"Winky is comes with Dobby." Dobby said. "Dobby is showing Winky aaaalll about Way of Pilotses." He gave her a very serious look. "But Winky is remembering that pilotses is not allowed to be flying planeses when pilotses is being drunk."

Winky looked shocked for a moment, then glanced at her bottle. She glanced from bottle to the industrious armament-construction elves to Dobby and back at the bottle.

Then she threw the bottle across the room; it landed with a crash amid the pile of useless stuff the elves had stripped from the raw materials they were now making into Sten guns and ammunition.

"Winky is not drinking on duty no more." she declared. "Only naughty elfses is being drunk when there is being works needs doing."

She was surprised, but touched, when every elf in the room shot to his or her feet in a standing ovation.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

The Harley-Davidson motorcycle makes a very distinctive noise.

Japanese bikes, in general, either buzz or yowl. British bikes have a habit of chugging. Italian bikes purr.

American bikes grunt and snort, which may or may not explain exactly why they are referred to as 'hogs'.

Sirius Orion Black's knucklehead mongrel streetfighter/cafe racer/chop/thing had an exceptionally recognisable engine note, due in large part to the absolute lack of any form of silencing or noise- dampening upon it's exhausts. They were two pieces of metal tubing that had at one time been scaffolding poles. When he didn't have the spells required to be stealthy switched on, the big black brute of a bike roared like a dragon, and tended to spit fire from it's exhaust pipes.

This unrestrained bellow matched the bike's appearance quite nicely. Although it lacked the absurdly long forks of the classic outlaw-biker machine, it posessed the handlebars that reached somewhere into the stratosphere, the acres of chrome, and the flame paint on the fuel tank. It also had possibly the widest tyres ever fitted to a motorcycle; great steamroller-like 240-section monsters that Sirius had made himself by magically widening a somewhat more mundane tyre. Between that, it's twin headlamps, it's low-laying stance, and those insanely tall apehanger bars, it definitely looked the part. Apart from the sidecar. This was an oddity (for an outlaw-biker type of bike) that Sirius had fitted as it allowed him to transport more than one girl at a time.

Harry had never (in his conscious memory) heard that thundering roar before; however, he'd heard it a few times in his very early childhood, with each but for the last being a harbinger of good things, because that engine had always announced the arrival of his 'Unca Pafoo'.

Two hours ago, Harry had received a note from Sirius, via Dobby. Sirius was very concerned by the missing mail, and had instructed Harry to have everything packed up and ready to leave in one and a half hours.

Thus it was that Harry was sitting on the doorstep of Number 4 Privet Drive, with one arm draped on his Hogwarts trunk, holding Hedwig's cage in his other hand, and wandering why the Order hadn't butted in yet, when he heard the rumble.

You could hear Sirius's bike coming from nearly two miles away.

The rumble grew to a roar, and that grew to a near-solid wall of sound as the massive bike came rolling towards the house, fire blasting from it's exhausts, and the deep throbbing bass-beat of an industrial metal rock band pelting from the stereo Sirius had (only a couple days before) finished fitting into the sidecar. Harry saw the curtains being closed in sequence all down Privet Drive as the bike rolled past each house, and laughed so hard he would have fallen over if he hadn't already been sitting down.

"Prek!" Hedwig complained as the throbbing monster drew to a halt.

"Wow! Awesome bike!" Dudley yelled; Sirius caught that, grinned, and cut the engine.

"Thanks. Better get yer gear in the sidecar pronto, Harry. We've got a long way to go, and a short time to get there."

"Right." Harry said, scrambling to his feet; Dudley gave him a hand heaving his trunk into the sidecar, and then Harry put Hedwig's cage down behind the trunk and scrambled onto the back of the bike.

"How come the fried chicken club haven't popped up?" Harry asked.

"Dung's on watch, and I spiked his booze." Sirius said with a grin and wink. "Arabella'll probably be popping up pretty soon. Or rather, she would be if she hadn't been bonked on the head by a house elf with a cricket bat."

"Oh right."

"Well, guess this is goodbye, hey cuz?" Dudley asked.

Harry nodded. "Yeah - for now. Look, if anything happens, grab your parents and scream for 'the Arpers' to evacuate you, right?"

"Right, I gotcha cuz. You take care, OK? I just found out I've got a cousin I kinda like and I don't want him getting messed up."

Harry laughed.

"Thanks, Duds. OK, Sirius - let's get outta here."

"Roger that, Harry." Sirius said, and booted the kickstart. The bike exploded into life, Hedwig made a definitely unamused noise, Sirius threw his machine into gear, and they were off.

Harry got the significance of this, exactly why Sirius had decided to do this. Harry had arrived at Privet Drive back in '81 onboard that very same Harley - and now he was leaving for good aboard the same bike.

"Where are we going?" He yelled.

"I found an abandoned airbase in Kent." Sirius shouted back. "I've got it all prepped for a Fidelus, we just need to drop some of your blood on the ward core. Oh, and I've tracked down a couple planes. Lancaster bomber, and a Stuka. One of my old biker buddies - Dutch guy, he's great - well, his work crew found 'em when they were draining a new polder, and I may have mentioned I was looking for wartime planes. They're in a hell of a state, but I reckon we can fix 'em - once we've got your new wand made."

"Awesome. Let's get this show on the road."

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

As the mutant hog rolled to a halt, Harry was already looking around, taking in what Sirius claimed was going to be their new home.

It wasn't much of a sight.

The abandoned airbase was just that. Abandoned. And it looked to have been abandoned since the late Forties. It was wildly overgrown, most of the buildings had rotted to skeletons, and those that remained in more-or-less one piece were so rotten they looked like one could knock them down with a feather.

However, there were a few signs of recent activity. The undergrowth had been cleared from the access road, down which they had just finished riding, and an area near to the ruins of the control tower had been cleared, providing access to the least rotted hanger. Three elderly caravans had been parked beside the control tower, along with a rather dilapitated Land-Rover, at a guess the vehicle that had been used to bring the caravans in.

And then there was the pair of rusty monsters that stood on their bent and battered undercarriages in the hanger. The bigger one was difficult to identify due to lacking most of it's skin, but the smaller was clearly a Stuka dive-bomber. Looking closer, Harry saw that someone had patched the roof of the battered hanger with several sheets of corrugated iron, and the assorted piles of junk near the pair of wrecked aircraft proved to be further rusty old aircraft parts, probably the wrecks of another three or four planes, though he couldn't for the life of him tell what.

"Man, this is a mess." he said, climbing off the bike.

Sirius laughed. "Aw, c'mon Harry. We've got to start somewhere. It's gonna be a lot of work, but I reckon it'll be worth it. C'mon, let's go get that Fidelius set up, then we can grab a bite to eat and get to work on one of the planes."

"So, who's been helping you set all this up?" Harry asked, following Sirius over towards the ruined control tower.

"Nobody." Sirius said. "Well, I, uh, 'borrowed' a tractor to cut out the undergrowth, bought the caravans from some gyppos, bought the Landy off a local farmer, and scrounged the tin out a junkyard. I got the wrecks here in my pocket - I shrank 'em."

Within what had at one time been the room at the base of the control tower, there was now a large chunk of rock that looked vaguely like an outsized tombstone, mostly covered in intricate little engraved runes.

"Here it is. The ward core." Sirius said.

"Wow, where'd you get this?" Harry asked.

"Godric's Hollow." Sirius quietly told him.

"... oh."

"I hope you don't mind."

"No, no. Nothing like that." Harry scratched his head, contemplating the stone. "I think... I think Mum and Dad would've wanted me to use it if there was any way it'd do me any good."

"That's what I figured." Sirius agreed. "C'mon, let's get this thing activated."

And so they did. Having cut his finger, Harry let a few drops of his blood fall into the recess at the top of the stone; the recess flashed red, and the glow spread rapidly down the stone until every rune was illuminated. A brief chant later, and Sirius indicated they were done.

"That's it. The whole airfield's now protected." He said.

Harry frowned. "I don't feel any different."

"Not surprised. You wanna tell me where the airbase is so I can actually find the fucking place again next time I head out?" Sirius requested, and Harry burst out laughing.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

"Dobby is saying hello, Mr Dudsey Sir."

Dudley looked up from his porno. Over the last week, he'd got quite used to the nutty elf popping up.

"Heya, Dobby. How's it?" he asked.

"It is being business as usual, Mr Dudsey Sir." Dobby said. "Mr Dudsey Sir, this is being Winky. Winky is being Dobby's friend, and Dobby is needs to show Winky The Dambusters."

Dudley burst out laughing. "Whaaat? Aw man, Harry took off and I'm STILL ending up watching that movie every few hours... Tell ya what, how about we watch something a bit different but the same sort of stuff?" He retreived a videotape and handed it to Dobby."This is called 'Memphis Belle'. I think you'll dig it."

Dobby nodded thoughtfully. The first time he'd encountered the Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir's cousin, he hadn't been impressed. But something had changed after the Ministry peoples had betrayed the Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir, and Dudley Dursley had turned into a decent human being, seemingly overnight. Dobby figured that when bad things happened they changed Biggers just as much as they changed elfses, and stopped worrying about it as Dudley loaded the video.

(And lo, the cousin of the Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir did gladly share a further vision with the prophet Dobby, and the prophet Dobby did share the vision with Winky the Elf, and thus did Winky take her first steps on the road to Enlightenment.)

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

Having had lunch, Sirius and Harry cobbled together a basic but functional wand for Harry. It was assembled from a length of stray holly wood with the core drilled out, the phoenix feather that Fawkes had deposited on his bed, and a load of electrical tape. Using it was markedly more of an effort than using his Ollivander wand; the jury-rigged home-made wand had an immense recoil when you cast, and you had to hold it in a vice-tight grip to keep control of a spell, otherwise the kick would throw it out your hand so hard that by two in the afternoon Harry sported a bandage round his left bicep where the butt of his wand had embedded itself into him.

Despite the hammer-blow imparted by casting through the home-made wand, the spells themselves felt somehow less damped; it was almost as if whatever Ollivander did to absorb the recoil likewise reduced the power of the wand. Sirius confirmed this, explaining that wand design was a trade-off between controllability and what he called 'throughput', and Harry rapidly found himself thoroughly enjoying the feel of this bare-bones shoulder-jolting ride. It made him feel somehow closer to his magic. Using an Ollivander wand had been a refined and genteel experience, that could, if anything, be likened to taking a ride in a limousine; this was like taking the helm of a Top Fuel dragster, all raw power and no manners. a bare-knuckled ride on the razor-edge of destruction.

And then there were the ideas he was getting about mounting a wand in a rifle stock. The solid butt-plate of a rifle ought to help absorb the kickback.

Once he'd got the hang of the way the wand gave him a smack in the arm to make sure he was paying attention, they started in on the Junkers. When they stopped for dinner, they'd got the wreck cleaned up, and inventoried what parts were missing. The plane was largely intact, but the prop was a total loss, as were the guns; fortunately these numbered among the pile of random bits of Stuka Sirius had picked up in Holland.

They'd managed to get the undercarriage straightened out, though the plane was currently sitting on it's wheel rims as the tyres had completely rotted away; shelving worrying about that for the moment (Sirius reckoned they could easily transfigure some car tyres) they turned their attention to the engine.

By the time they knocked off for the night and staggered, exhausted, to the caravans, the engine looked like new. It sat, a great hunk of gleaming metal, within the Junkers battered frame; in the morning, they'd see if they could get it to turn over, then start in on restoring the corroded airframe.

All in all, the work was going a lot faster than Harry had expected.

As he and Sirius settled themselves in the bedroom caravan, the gas heater rumbling away and casting it's orange glow across the glorified tin can, Harry wasn't sure how he'd get to sleep. Although he'd been having trouble keeping his eyes open, now that he didn't have electric lights making him squint he was too fired-up to go to sleep.

So he was glad when Sirius suddenly spoke.

"So what's the big plan, Harry? This shit is damn cool, but what's the big plan?"

Harry grinned at the ceiling.

"I'm not totally sure." he said. "From what I've been reading in the Daily Prophet, either Voldemort's laying low or the Ministry's suppressing all news about the Dark Wanker's crap." His grin became positively evil. "I'm sick of reacting, Sirius. I want to be the guy people are reacting to. I say as soon as we get the Stuka running and our pilot's had some practise, we announce our joining this game by blasting Riddle Manor and Malfoy Manor into fucking great piles of rubble."

"You realise the government's probably gonna start going on about whoever's controlling these planes being a Dork Lord?" Sirius asked.

"Yeah, I figure that much." Harry confirmed. "What we need is a logo nobody's ever going to forget, but it doesn't say 'Hey, bad guy here' like a snake violating a skull. Then we start announcing our strikes by sending messages to the Prophet at the same time as the bombs are falling... saying something like, 'Such-and-such has been determined to be an Enemy of Civilisation. His den of iniquity has ceased to exist'. We need adresses for the places we need to hit."

"We can get adresses. Your mad elf mate can get them for you."

"Right. Heh, this is going to be fucking awesome - once we've got those old birds back in the air."

"Yeah, fucking awesome. Tell you what, in the morning you keep work on the Junkers and I'll see if I can track down more birds."

"Um, Sirius, you realise that once we've got one of a plane running, we can transfigure copies out of raw materials?"

"... why the Hell didn't I think of that? Right! Tomorrow we're gonna go check out a whole load of museums!"

"... why the Hell didn't I think of that?"

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

Dobby and Winky (who was now dressed in what they had been able to discern to be an Air Training Cadet's uniform) were sloping through the halls of Hogwarts. They'd been trying to work out how to get Winky flight training (and Dobby solo time) without upsetting any muggleses, when Dimmy (who wasn't very bright, but sometimes had interesting ideas) had suggested something that had Dobby wanting to iron his ears because of how silly it made him feel.

The slightly retarded elf had asked if they thought the Come-And-Go Room would be able to do planeses. Dobby had opened his mouth to tell Dimmy not to be silly, then remembered something he'd heard about a marvellous machine called - as far as Dobby could work out - a 'flight simlyurateror'.

So now they were headed for what Biggers called the Room of Requirements, concentratedly requiring a flight simulator.

As they didn't have much idea what a flight simulator looked like, the sight that met their eyes when they entered the room was most definitely not of the 'cockpit on hydraulic rams' persuasion.

Instead, there was a fully-armed fully-fuelled Lancaster bomber waiting for them, parked at the end of a runway.

The two elves stared up at the majestic machine (simulation though it might be) for a few moments, then nodded gravely to each other.

"You is turns out those lightses." they reverentially chorused. "Is you not knowing there is being a war on?"

Then they boarded the simulated Lanc, and began working through the pre-flight checklists.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

"Well, that should be it." Sirius said.

It was three days since they'd done their vanishing act from Privet Drive. They'd spent the day after Harry took off trawling through museums, in particular the branch of the Imperial War Museum at Duxford; although it lacked a Stuka, there was a lot of beautifuly preserved aircraft. Then they'd used Harry's invisibility cloak to sneak into RAF Conningsway and spend several hours drooling over the machines of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, painstakingly making magical recordings of each and every part of the beautiful old ladies of the air.

Then a visit to the RAF Museum's Hendon branch in London hit paydirt; one of only two intact Ju-87 Stuka's left in the world, a plane captured by British troops in Germany in 1945. After spending several hours painstakingly examining the ugly old brute, and asking some highly amused museum staff about a billion questions (they claimed Harry was doing a dissertation on the Stuka for a school project that was due at the end of summer) and in the process having their ears bent for a couple hours by a charming little old man who happened to have flown Hurricanes during the Second World War, they returned to 'their' airfield, heads buzzing with ideas.

"Yeah. Looks good." Harry said, running some checks on the fuel lines.

"Shall we give her a try?" Sirius asked, grinning. Harry grinned back, checked the wheels were chocked, climbed into the cockpit, checked Sirius was clear of the prop, and gave the button a push.

The plane spluttered, coughed, and the engine failed to catch.

"Try it again, I'm sure we've got it right this time." Sirius shouted.

Harry tried it again. Once again, the engine coughed; this time, the exhausts spat black smoke.

"Third time lucky?" Sirius shouted.

Harry gave it a third go. The plane choked, coughed, spluttered, then ROARED. Smoke and fire blasted from the exhausts as the nigh-on sixty-year-old aero-engine caught and held; Sirius whooped and yodelled, dancing around like a chimp, and Harry couldn't help but yell too. He experimentally gunned the engine, thrilling in the unbridled roar.

"Yes!" Sirius shouted "YES! IT'S ALIVE! WOOHOOHOOHOOHOO!"

"Our creation LIVES!" Harry yelled back. "THE BEAST IS ALIVE!

After enjoying himself for a few minutes, revving the massive Junkers Jumo V-12, thrilling at the way the airframe shuddered in time to his enthusiastic shoves at the battered throttle, he shut the old dog down, unable to restrain the maniac grin on his face.

"This," Sirius declared, "Calls for some celebratory beer."

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

Dear Hermione.

Well, things are a bit calmer now. Sorry I haven't been in touch the last couple of days; it's all been a bit hectic, what with cobbling some new tools together, working on The Beast, and checking out the aircraft museum at Duxford (You ever been? It's AWESOME!) and the RAF Museum at Hendon (Just as AWESOME!) oh, and sneaking into RAF Conningsby to check out the planes from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, which was AWESOME TIMES TEN.

Right now, I'm sitting out the front of the hanger at my airbase (Location Classified by power of Fidelus) downing a few with Padfoot in celebration - we just got The Beast's engine to turn over. The Ju-87's an ugly brute of a thing, but oh god does it sound good after all the work we've put in! And it'll sound even better when it's blowing Death Eaters to small blobs.

After lunch, we'll be putting the finishing touches to the fuselage and mounting the new cannons, then we'll start in on clearing the flat patch - right now it's really not that flat as it's covered in scrub. Not surprising really, it's been abandoned since like 1946. Once we've got the runway useable (this used to be a Bomber Command airbase back in the war, far as I know the Yanks flew from here) we're going to start in on The Old Lady, which'll be a much bigger job than the Stuka - shit, we had enough trouble restoring the one engine, and it's not like playing with a Junkers Juno 211 is quite the same as bringing four Rolls-Royce Merlins back to life.

Well, I better finish this thing and get Dobby to take it over. I'm now absolutely certain Hedwig's been being intercepted, because she just looks sad when I get an elf to take you letters, rather than trying to bash my head in. Remember, if anything happens, grab your parents and shout for the Arpers to evacuate you.

Love ya,

Harry.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

Dear Harry.

Look, just what are you getting up to? Airbase? Blowing up Death Eaters? A Stuka? You're talking about a Junkers Ju-87 dive bomber, right? Four Rolls-Royce Merlins? The only plane I can think of that has four Rolls-Royce Merlins is a Lancaster bomber. My grandpa used to be an RAF mechanic in the war, and if you let him he goes on and on and on and on about the planes. It's really rather fascinating.

Am I right that you've decided to make like it's 1944 on the Death Eaters, and that Dobby has decided this is a brilliant game, and a whole load of other house elves agree with him? You realize that Second World War planes are quite difficult to fly, and that each one is a bit different? Have you got any way for whoever's going to do the flying to practice without risking splattering themselves all over the scenery?

I'm sure there's something I could do to help - I've finished my summers' correspondence courses and I've read all next term's books, so I haven't got much to do for the last month before it's time to go back to Hogwarts. I want in on this, Harry.

Love,

Hermione.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

"Wow." Sirius said. "She's sharp."

"Really sharp." Harry agreed with a nod. "She's brilliant. Hey, Dobby?"

"Mr Harry Potter Sir is calling for Dobby?"

"Yeah, good to see ya Dobby." Harry rose to his feet and turned to face the hanger; the little elf was peering fascinatedly around, getting the lay of the land so to speak.

"Check this out." Harry said, slapping the nearly-finished Stuka on the nosecone. "Whatcha think?"

Dobby thoughtfully contemplated the plane for a few moments, then leapt onto it's nose and proceeded to scramble all over it, most

thoroughly checking it out.

"This is being Stuka, Mr Harry Potter Sir?" he asked, examining where Harry and Sirius had just started mounting the new guns.

"Yup. She's an ugly brute, but she'll fly, and oh boy can she precision-bomb." Harry said, nodding. "Look, Dobby. Hermione just wrote me, and she raised a couple good points. How are you going to get practice before we actually put a plane in the air?"

"Dobby is already thinking of thats, Mr Harry Potter Sir." Dobby said, beaming proudly. "Dobby is uses the Come-And-Go-Room to make Simlyuraterator. Dobby is having fifty hours on Lancaster now! And Dobby isn't crashing even once!"

"Good on ya, Dobby! Nice going!" Harry said, deciphering what the hyperactive elf was talking about.

Dobby beamed.

"Mr Harry Potter Sir is wanting Dobby to be practising with Stuka, yes?" he asked.

"Got it in one." Harry said with a nod. "And... look, Dobby. We need a way for Hermione to get here and home."

"Oh, that is being easy, Mr Harry Potter Sir. Arperses is being able to be bringing Miss Grangy Ma'am here, and Arperses is being able to be taking Miss Grangy Ma'am back to Miss Grangy Ma'am's house... Is Dobby being allowed to be asking Mr Harry Potter very important thing?"

"Dobby, any time you've got a question, ask." Harry said.

"Oh, Mr Harry Potter Sir is such a great and noble and wonderful wizard!" the elf wailed, bursting into tears and hugging Harry's legs. Then he calmed down just as abruptly, leaped to attention, and saluted. "Dobby is wonders if Mr Harry Potter Sir is has roundel?"

"... what? Oh, like a logo for our planes... Tell you what, Dobby. You and the other elves come up with some ideas, and show them to me, and I'll pick out the one I like. OK?"

"Dobby is gets right on it, Mr Harry Potter Sir! And Arperses is brings Miss Grangy Ma'am to Mr Harry Potter Sir when Miss Grangy Ma'am is saying she is being ready!" Dobby assured, saluting repeatedly.

And he vanished.

"Merlin I love that little guy!" Sirius chortled.

"You and me both, Padfoot. You and me both." Harry said, sitting down to compose a short note to Hermione.

Having sent it off, he turned his attention back to helping Sirius put the finishing touches to the Stuka.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

Hermione -

We'd be glad for any help you can give us. When you're ready to come over, ask the Arpers to bring you, Dobby's arranged it.

See you soon,

Harry.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

Hermione delayed but a few seconds. She grabbed her wand and a couple of bits, then asked for an Arper to take her to Harry.

A tin-hatted gas-masked elf appeared, saluted, and took hold of her hand.

And then they were someplace else.

The first thing she saw was the Stuka, looming over her. It's skin was bare metal, and several panels were missing on the left wing, where Harry and Sirius were busily mounting an absurdly large gun. The odd panel was missing here and there, but it looked like it would very soon be airworthy. Glancing around, she saw a rusting hulk that looked like it might have once been a Lancaster, and great piles of parts and scrap metal.

"Arper is brings The Great Wizard Mr Harry Potter Sir his Miss Grangy Ma'am! SIR!" the elf loudly declared.

"Thanks." Harry said, not moving. He grinned at Hermione. "Hang on, I'm just holding this up."

"Got it." Sirius said. "You can let go now."

Harry let go, nodded at the fact the gun was staying in place, and vaulted down off the wing.

"Heya, Hermione." he said.

Hermione hugged him, noting how he had grease smeared on his nose.

"I won't hug you back, I've got oil on my hands." he said with one of his disarming lop-sided grins. "Oi Padfoot, what say we break for lunch?"

"OK, I'll be with you in a mo - I'm just getting this ammo feed hooked up."

"Right, seeya in a minute." Harry said, wiping his hands on a dirty towel as he headed out the hanger.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

Harry settled himself on the step of their kitchen caravan, idly lighting up a cigarette with one hand as he passed Hermione a plate of freshly-fried 'greasy spoon' with the other. Sirius had got done hooking up the ammo feed by the time Harry had finished frying lunch, and now they were all seated on either the caravan step or old machinery parts (Hermione on a rusty engine block, Sirius on a pile of wheels) with plates of food on their laps.

If, that is, you can call an English fried lunch food. Bacon, eggs, sausages, chips, black pudding, and baked beans.

"So yeah." Harry said. "I guess you've got a whole load of questions, right Hermione?"

Hermione nodded, doubtfully contemplating her plateful of artery-clogging greasy things.

"Well, first off, what's with the smoking?" she asked. "Aren't you worried about getting lung cancer or something?"

Harry shook his head.

"Just one of the things I've discovered the Wizarding World's been keeping to itself." he said. "It takes a competent mediwitch about ten seconds to cure cancer. They just vanish the tumor."

"... oh. So, uh, what's the plan? What can I help with?"

"The plan is," Harry said, "We are going to take the Death Eaters apart - one piece at a time. They can run, but they can't hide; wards can't conceal anything from house elves. We are going to pound them, and we are going to keep pounding them. We'll kick over every ant pile, turn over every stone, smash open every dark corner - we are going to teach them the meaning of fear. We will strike them in ways they refuse to understand; they are going to learn a hard lesson."

He paused and took a deep breath.

"Don't piss off the Marauders. You will NOT come out on top."

"We are going to teach them to fear that name." Sirius said with a grave nod. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the hanger, the gesture taking in the nearly-completed Stuka. "We've already come up with a name for that plane. Harry's mother did the groundwork we're building on. She's who taught me what I needed to know to build my bike. And that's why we've named the Stuka 'Lily Potter's Revenge'."

"I've been being screwed with all my life." Harry cut in. "And I've had it to the back teeth with that crap. They're probably gonna start calling me a dark lord - well, if sorting this place out means I'm a dark lord, then a dark lord I'll be. The Wizarding World allows people to be sent to Hell without trial. The government enacts kangaroo courts, and executes people without question. The only work a muggle-born such as yourself, or most of us half-bloods, can hope to get is menial labor with a rate of pay so low you'll likely spend your entire life heavily in debt - and it is illegal for a witch or wizard to work in the muggle world. It's classed as 'endangering the Statue of Secrecy'. Then there's this whole 'expulsion equals no more magic for life' thing. That's the equivalent of punishing child delinquency by amputating their arms. That's what we're up against, Hermione. Voldemort is just a symptom."

"Shouldn't we talk to Dumbledore about all this?" Hermione asked.

Sirius shook his head.

"I noticed something a couple weeks back." he said. "Dumbledore always gets his lemon drops from Snivellus. I was worried, for obvious reasons, so the next time Dumbledore offered me a lemon drop I took it, palmed it, and analyzed it later on." He shook his head. "It was packed full of potions designed to fight the onset of senile dementia... and I can remember him popping lemon drops like there was no tomorrow when I was in Hogwarts over twenty years ago."

"ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?" Harry bellowed, on his feet. An Arper popped up and caught his plate, neatly scooping the spilt food back on before it could hit the ground.

"Yeah." Sirius glumly said, nodding. "Sorry, but it's true. I got Tonks to check his medical records, and it turns out Dumbledore started going senile nearly thirty years back... and no known potion can halt it. They can just slow it down."

"... oh." Hermione and Harry both mumbled. Harry sat back down, and the Arper plunked the plate back onto his lap before popping off.

"Yeah. Damn, huh?" Sirius gloomily agreed. "The rest of the Order, apart from maybe Mad-Eye and Tonks, well, they're totally overawed by Dumbledore. I'm not sure about Moony, but Molly Weasely screamed at me for ten minutes straight when I 'dared to suggest' that Dumbledore was losing his marbles. As for Snivellus... I wouldn't trust him to piss on a burning orphan. The Ministry? They're part of the problem. No, Hermione. It's all up to us now. We're the only people who can both see what's wrong and actually do something about it... and believe me, the Ministry will be calling Harry worse things than 'Dark Lord' before we're done."

Hermione heaved a sigh, her head drooping.

"Shit." she said. "Shit, shit, shit... But why does it all have to be down to Harry?"

"Hasn't it always?" Harry asked. "Think about it. The day Mum and Dad died. Quirrel. The Chamber. Pettigrew. Last year when poor bloody Cedric went South." He shook his head. "Every time, it's always ended up with me and the baddies facing off. Shit, the only person who's been with me in at the end and not died is you."

"And you saved my life from oh God knows how many Dementors." Hermione told him. "That's twice you've saved my life, isn't it?"

Harry nodded gloomily. "Don't feel like you owe me anything, Hermione. You're the best friend I've ever had. I mean, Ron is fun and all, he's a great guy to just, you know, hang out with, but he's thick as two short planks. And anyway, things changed with me and Ron last year. He's known me for years and I've got his dumb arse out of trouble plenty times - he should've known he could trust me."

"I thought you and Ron were best mates."

"We are." Harry said. "But being best mates isn't like being partners. Me and Ron, we're best mates. We always have a real hoot when we're hanging out. Me and you, we're partners. It's different." He shook his head. "Out of you and Ron, I sure know which of you I'd rather have covering my back in a fight, and it's not Ron."

Hermione stared at him for several long moments.

"You're right, Harry." she said, carefully setting her plate aside before standing up. "I want you to know, Harry. I will ALWAYS be here for you. You've... you've been my hero since you shoved your wand up a troll's nose for me four years ago, and I think you always will be. I'd follow you anywhere. If you decide Hell needs to be bombed, I'll be the one asking, 'Give me some bombs, and where is it?'. I'll be with you all the way, Harry. I promise."

Harry stared at her, a pole-axed look on his face, then set his plate aside, stood up, and hugged her. It took her a moment to realize that, as well as grinning like a loon, he was crying.

"You've got no idea how much that means to me, 'Mione." he said. "No idea at all."

"Actually," she said, "I think I do. Now c'mon, let's eat our grub and see if we can get that plane ready to blow things up."

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

At Hermione's suggestion, they clad the Stuka's skin in dragonhide (uplifted by some gleeful Arpers from a warehouse in Diagon Alley) due to the radar-absorbing and magic-resistant properties of that particular remarkably tough material. After all, as Hermione pointed out, radar doesn't pick dragons up and it might avoid their planes getting shot up by the Royal Air Force.

Round about four in the afternoon, Dobby dropped past with a huge armload of pieces of paper, each containing a different elf's suggestion for a logo to paint on their planes. They ranged from downright absurd (a big smiley face) to wildly intricate and back.

Harry and Hermione spent a bemused hour going through them while Sirius put the final finishing touches to the reconstruction of the Junkers and started making some bombs - being a Marauder, he knew several diabolical concoctions that would explode if hit very hard, and then it was a simple expedient of making a bomb-shaped metal cannister and filling it with potentially deadly potion.

Right as Sirius was completing the first bomb, Hermione let out an excited squeak and stuffed a particular drawing into Harry's hands.

It was a stylized double-headed eagle, in gold, with wings spread.

"It's perfect!" she said.

"Yeah. It is." Harry said, completely unaware that Winky had copied it off the front of a Games Workshop shop.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

The following morning when Dobby dropped Hermione off at the airbase, he was met by a sight that stopped him dead in his tracks.

The Stuka had been taxied out of the hanger, onto the base of the runway, which was now clear. It's upper parts were painted drab green, it's underparts steel gray, and it's nosecone a bright yellow.

And, painted across both top and bottom, so large it reached the old plane's wingtips, was the double-headed eagle of the Imperium of Man.

Looking closer, he couldn't help but giggle madly when he saw the bombs slung under the Stuka's wings and the nose art (the traditional burlesque image found on bombers everywhere) which showed a scantily-clad and wickedly grinning Lily Potter with a Sten gun in one hand, over ornate scrollwork reading:

LILY POTTER'S REVENGE.

"...!!..." Dobby said, or rather made an inarticulate noise that sounded a bit like that.

"Morning, 'Mione. Morning, Dobby. Whatcha think?"

"Wow... it looks even better in daylight." Hermione murmured.

"It is being PERFECT, Mr Harry Potter Sir!" Dobby squeaked.

Harry grinned and gave the Stuka an affectionate slap on the nosecone.

"How soon do you reckon you'll be ready to take her up?"

"Dobby is being ready right now, Mr Harry Potter Sir!" Dobby squeaked, bouncing up and down. "Dobby is being ready to be scramble on Mr Harry Potter Sir's word! Mr Harry Potter Sir is tells Dobby where target is being, and Dobby is bombs target!"

"Do you know where Voldemort is?"

"Yes, Mr Harry Potter Sir. The very bad Mr Mouldyvorts is being in place what is being called Little Hanglyton, at the house what was being owned by the very bad Mr Moldyvorts father."

Harry nodded.

"If you feel up for it, I'd like to send a message to Voldemort."

"What is message being, Mr Harry Potter Sir?"

"See those bombs slung under the Stuka's wings? Those."

"YES Mr Harry Potter Sir! AT ONCE Mr Harry Potter Sir!" Dobby cheered, saluting wildly. "Dobby is scrambles at once!"

And then he was running for the Stuka, loudly (and exceedingly badly) singing snatches of Iron Maiden's 'Aces High' as he ran.

(And the prophet Dobby did sing the sacred hymns of Dickinson and Harris, and the prophet Dobby did observe the rituals of Ignition and Conact, yae, and the prophet Dobby's checklist it was completed.)

A few moments passed after Dobby's backside hit the seat, and then the engine coughed, choked, spat black smoke, and roared into life.

(And lo, the great Crow of Death did speak, and thunder was in it's voice:)

('Quail, thou fools. Too long hast thou ignored thine ARP; thou hast not Searchlight nor Flak, thy lights they burn brightly at night, and thy Air Raid Siren doth rust. Quail, thou fools, for thy doom is upon thee, born aloft upon great wings of steel and dragon-hide, and before the day is done thou shalt know fear, for the bombers of The Great Wizard Harry Potter Sir are upon thee!')

"Dobby is being ready for takeoff, Mr Harry Potter Sir!" the elf bellowed, just audible over the thunder of the engine.

Harry fired a quick Sonorous at himself.

"Dobby, you are cleared for takeoff! Good luck, and Godspeed!"

Dobby didn't answer; instead he ran the Stuka up to full throttle, a maniacal grin on his face as the plane bounced down the runway, waited until his speed was high enough, and pulled smoothly back on the stick; and the old warbird took to the air for the first time since 1942.

(And thus did the great struggle begin.)

"Harry, are you sure about letting Dobby fly?" Hermione asked.

Harry shook his head.

"No, Hermione. I'm not. In fact, I'm shit-scared he's going to crash and kill himself - but it's his choice. Someone has to be the first to take one of our planes up, and he REALLY wanted it. I like Dobby. I like Dobby a lot - hell, he spent the best part of a year doing his damndest to save my life, so in a funny way I figure I owe him." He shook his head. "So I figure, the best I can do for him is let him live the dream - and maybe let him strike back at Voldemort."

Hermione nodded slowly.

"Then I guess we'll have to just wait and hope."

"Yeah... Good luck and Godspeed, Dobby. Good luck and Godspeed."

Harry had absolutely no idea of how much that meant, and not just in a metaphorical way. He was now being worshiped as a god by thirty-seven house elves and one extremely disturbed red-headed teenage girl, and when magically powerful creatures (such as house elves and Weaselys) do some worshipping, it means a lot.

Thus, when he wished Dobby (his most fanatical worshipper) luck, it was about as effective as if the elf had chugged a pint of the potion known as 'liquid luck' - without the chance of toxic shock.

The blessed Stuka raced away from the airbase, engine thundering, airframe thrumming, and house-elven pilot cackling gleefully as it carried it's cargo of death towards the unsuspecting village of Little Hangleton.

The Death Eaters weren't going to know what had hit them.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

AN - And the insanity continues. This is the second out of the three chapters I posted on Rorsarchs Blot's Yahoo group, and I've just got done cleaning up and formatting, so here we go.

Cheers,

Cal.


	3. Chapter 3

This ain't no slash fic.

This ain't no self-insert fic neither.

This is The Book of Dobby.

---------------------

Love is a razor and I walked the line on that silver blade

Slept in the dust with his daughter, her eyes red with the slaughter of innocence

But I will pray for her

I will call her name out loud

I would bleed for her

if I could only see her now

Living on a razor's edge

Balancing on a ledge

Oh, balancing on a ledge

Oh balancing on a ledge

Living on a razor's edge

Balancing on a ledge

You know

You know

The evil that men do lives on and on...

- Iron Maiden, 'The Evil That Men Do', -Seventh Son of a Seventh Son-

-------------------------

The village of Little Hangleton in the north of Cornwall is a pretty quiet place.

Aside from the ghost stories related to Riddle Manor at the north end of town (and the assorted mysterious deaths over the years) it is one of those places where not much of anything ever seems to happen. People come and go, tourists pass through in the summer, but very little ever seems to change, and the modern era has little visible impact.

That said, Little Hangleton, despite being some middle-of-nowhere podunk villiage, plays host to a couple of frothing Games Workshop fanboys.

These fanboys are in fact brothers, named Jeffrey and Andrew Lewis. Andrew is the elder of the two; Jeffrey is the one who got into Games Workshop first.

On this particular pleasent afternoon, the two had been kicked out the house by their mother as their game of Warhammer 40,000 had got a bit too loud, and they were now sprawled in the front garden and arguing about whether the Evil Sunz were cooler than the Goffs or not.

They had just about come to blows over which Ork clan is Orkiest when they heard the distant buzz of an aero-engine. This was a very unusual thing; Little Hangleton is nearly sixty miles from the nearest airfield, and the only planes one usually sees are only visible as sun-highlighted specks at the tip of contrails. Therefore, the brothers Lewis immediately forgot their disagreement and sprang to their feet, peering into the air in an attempt to see the plane.

That's when an unearthly howl joined the engine's buzz. The sound itself started getting rapidly louder.

"Woah, what's that?" Jeffrey said. Their next-door neighbour, little old Mr Spencer, screamed something incoherent about Jerries and air-raids and Stukas, and ran for his basement.

The brothers Lewis ignored Mr Spencer, he often had flashbacks, and continued peering into the sky.

It was Andrew who spotted the dark crank-winged shape as it plunged from the skies; the Stuka dropped, dive siren wailing, like an avenging angel towards Riddle Manor.

Andrew and Jeffrey both clearly saw two black specks part company with the dive-bomber's underparts, and then it was peeling off, screaming low enough over their house that both brothers saw the double-headed eagle aquilla of the Imperium of Man on the plane's underside.

Then Riddle Manor exploded, and both brothers decided to start collecting Space Marines.

----------------

Disclaimer: This disclaimer is Classyficated Top Secret, and yous is not allowed to be reading it.

----------------

The Holy Testament of Dobby.

Per Arcana ad Astra

A Doghead13 fanfic.

Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace.

Preread by the Caer Azkaban Yahoo group.

Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH

This is not a drill.

-----------------

Chapter 3: Welcome to the Human Race.

(In which the great struggle against the Arch-Heretic begins)

A few moments before, a Death Eater meeting had been in session.

"... And they will be helpless before us!" Voldemort concluded. Then he heard the wail.

Very few wizards knew it, but the being generally known as Voldemort had once been a half-blood boy raised by muggles. His first term at Hogwarts had been in 1940; his childhood was stained by air-raid drills and worrying about Jerry.

And he had heard that wail once before. He recognised it immediately; he'd never forget it. The only real friend he'd ever had was blown to bits in that air-raid. It took him straight back to Portland Harbour on the fourth of July 1940, the wail of falling dive-bombers, the thunderclap as the bomb hit - fire, flying metal, and fear.

"AIR RAID!" he bellowed. "EVERYONE GET OUT OF HERE!"

Then he dissaparated.

Most of the Death Eaters followed suit, but half a dozen were left stood there going, 'Huh?'

That half dozen included Crabbe and Goyle Senior, Nott, MacNair, and a duo of fresh recruits.

Therefore, when the two bombs released by the dive-bomber came crashing through the ceiling into the rough area of Voldemort's throne and exploded, there were six very immediate casulties.

Likewise, a snake known as Nagini (who was curled up on one arm of Voldemort's throne) didn't stand a snowball's hope in Hell. Hit headon by two hundred kilos of steel filled with highly volatile alchemy, the unfortunate snake was torn apart and then vaporised by the blast.

And Riddle Manor burned brightly.

--------------------------------

They'd just got the Lancaster back on her undercarriage when Dobby came in to land, the bomb racks beneath the Stuka's wings conspicuously empty.

In the Lanc, they'd found something that creeped all three of them the Hell out; a partial skeleton, still holding the tailgunner's controls. They'd taken it out the plane and buried it beneath a massive chunk of rock they'd set in the ground in front of where the control tower had once been.

It was a simple pyramid of raw bedrock, marked with a slab of metal they'd taken from a piece of wreckage, and it bore the following:

In memory of the Unknown Airman.

Never in the course of human history has so much been owed by so many to so few.

Then, quieter and more solemn, they'd turned their attention back to the Lanc. They were so tense that the roar of the approaching Stuka was definitely welcomed; as Dobby taxied the old plane into the hanger, the three humans left the bomber and watched.

"How'd it go?" Harry asked as Dobby climbed out the plane.

"Is not so bad." Dobby said. "Stuka is being juuuust right. But the very bad Mr Mouldyvorts is gets away, and so does most of thems Deaths Gobblerators. They is wizard-pops away when Dobby's bombs is still falling, Dobby is thinks that Mr Harry Potter Sir's dive sirenses is maybe makes them be scarpering."

"Must admit I'm not really surprised." Harry said. "I mean, Voldemort grew up in the muggle world during the Second World War, it's not surprising he legged it... I guess he'd heard a Stuka before."

"Oh well." Hermione said. "We'd better make some more bombs and blow up the Malfoys."

"I've got a better idea than that, but it'll be a load of work." Harry said. "We'll need to make a whole bunch of bullets for the cannons." He turned to Dobby. "Fancy strafing Malfoy Manor?"

"Oooooohh, Dobby is likes Mr Harry Potter Sir's idea very much!"

"Thought you would."

---------------------------------

"Good Lord, Severus! Are you okay?" Dumbledore gasped.

"I'm okay, I'm okay." Snape assured, flopping into a chair.

"Do you need post-cruciatus potion?"

"No, no, it's nothing like that." Snape said, waving Dumbledore off.

"Severus, you're shaking like a leaf! What in Merlin's name happened?"

Snape gave Dumbledore a highly worried look.

"Albus, have you ever heard the term, 'Air raid' before?"

"I confess I can't say I have."

"I hadn't either, Albus. I hadn't either." Snape shuddered. "As you know, I was at a meeting of my... other organisation. You-know-who had just completed a speech, when we heard the most terrible shriek - it put a banshee to shame! The Dark Lord yelled something about 'air raid', and commanded us to flee." He shuddered again. "Albus, I apparated only a half mile, and mere moments after I departed, I swear that the Dark Lord's headquarters exploded! The whole building was left an inferno - it was terrifying! And the sound, sweet Merlin the sound! I swear I saw a muggle flying machine of some kind departing the area moments afterwards, and I am certain that terrible howl was coming from it."

"This is most vexing, Severus. Was anyone unable to get out in time?"

"I beleive Mr Crabbe and Mr Goyle to have been consumed by the inferno. Likewise, it is my belief that at least three others failed to escape. And... Albus, Nagini was perched upon one arm of the Dark Lord's throne."

"I see." Dumbledore frowned. Then his thoughts drifted off onto a subject mainly involving wombles.

"Lemon drop?" he offered.

-----------------------------------

Voldemort slowly settled himself into Lucius Malfoy's finest armchair.

His hands were shaking.

"My Lord, if I may be so bold... what in Merlin's name happened back there?" Lucius nervously asked.

For a moment, Voldemort considered snapping that they'd obviously been attacked by mad Muggles, Then he considered lying and claiming it was something left over from Grindlewald.

Then he decided to tell the truth.

"That, Lucius, is a part of why I loathe muggles." He said.

"... my Lord?" Lucius asked, bewildered.

"As you are aware, I am an orphan." Voldemort stated. "As you are likely unaware, I was abandoned and raised in the muggle world during the era of Grindlewald's war."

"Indeed?" Lucius asked, surprised.

"Indeed. Muggles are vicious brutes, Lucius. And their appetite for destruction is truly alarming. Their history is merely a resume of one senseless war after another; their excuses to destroy are without count. What we heard today is a muggle machine known as a 'Stuka'. It's purpose is simple; to destroy. It flies, high and fast, and carries a number of explosive devices known as 'bombs'. When these 'bombs' are dropped, that which they fall upon is likely to be utterly destroyed, and anyone caught within the blast will die."

He sat forwards.

"Lucius, I have heard that terrible scream before. On that day, the only woman I have ever loved was blasted apart by those foul creatures we call muggles, for the simple crime of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. That, Lucius, is when I realised what a horrific threat the muggles pose to the Wizarding World. In the time of Grindlewald's war, over fifty MILLION of them died, and that was barely enough to put a dent in their masses. Each and every one is a barely-civilised murderous idiot, just seeking for another moronic reason to kill. That damn fool Dumbledore and his ilk are unable to see the threat the muggles pose; they regard those unashamed killers as silly little pet-like beings to be protected. You and I know that the muggles are the enemy of all we hold dear, Lucius; and today you have seen why."

Lucius nodded thoughtfully.

"Indeed." he said.

"And that," Voldemort said, "Is why we must eradicate those vermin before they destroy us all."

------------------------

At two in the afternoon, they had the Stuka's ammunition compartments full; the tailgunner's double-barreled MG 81Z machine gun, and the gigantic forwards-facing 37mm cannons they had mounted in the wings where the original plane's MG-17 wing guns had originally been. Harry had remarked that they'd managed to come up with a new variant of the Ju-87, as it was essentially a B with the anti-tank weapons from the G fitted into it's wings, with a pair of bomb hardpoints tacked on beneath as opposed to the single bomb slung under the cockpit; after a lot of joking about, they'd decided to call it a Ju-87 H. Then they discovered that the 'H' appelation had at one time been applied to a wartime variant of Ju-87, so they renamed it a Ju-87 I, all of this to-and-fro happening to ease the boredom of manufacturing ammunition.

Then, the Stuka being fully-laden with a good compliment of bullets and bombs (and a good few spare rounds being stashed in the back of the Land-Rover, and a little bomb painted on each side of the Stuka's cockpit) Hermione and Sirius turned their attention back to the Lancaster while Harry finished assembling the blueprints of a Spitfire Mark IX, put together from their extensive examinations and note-taking at the museums and, of course, RAF Conningsby. He really wanted to get the blueprints for the late-war Griffon-engined Spitfire Mark XII, but that would have to wait. He was absolutely certain they'd be facing opposition in the air, sooner or later, either from the Death Eaters or the Royal Air Force, and when they did, he wanted to be prepared.

For now, they were ahead in this game. Their tests had shown that anything coated in dragon-hide was invisible to radar (Hermione had come out with a spiel involving words like 'acting as a black-body at radio frequencies' and things like that) so, for now, they had the advantage of tactical invisibility - but Harry was sure that wouldn't last. Someone of the RAF persuasion was bound to notice nutters in old planes blowing things up, and when they did he intended to be ready.

The double-headed eagle was good, he thought. It was highly visible, and just as distinctive, without screaming 'Baddie!' like Voldemort's rotten skull logo. The house elves were keeping tabs on the movements of Death Eaters - he wasn't sure how, but Dobby had assured him it was so - and, sooner or later, the Death Eaters were bound to start attacking muggles again.

And when they did, they'd be in for an unpleasent surprise in the form of house elf commandos with Sten guns and wearing that eagle - and those elves would be treating the Ministry's Obliviators as enemy combatants. If you asked Harry, messing with people's minds was distinctly not on. You mess with their mind, you mess with who they are; destroy someone's past and you destroy the person.

Heh. Nothing says 'Good guys here!' like saving innocent civillian lives.

"Hey Harry, give us a hand here. We need your fine touch."

"Sure." he said, setting the blueprint (actually a tiny, 1:32nd scale, model of a Spitfire, perfectly detailed in every way - give it petrol and the miniature Rolls-Royce Merlin would run) down on the table and heading over to the battered Lanc. The old warhorse had been missing her port outboard engine when they started, so Hermione and Sirius had been busying themselves constructing a replacement. That morning, they'd got the Lanc's other three engines to run (leading to much hooting and hollering as they heard the purr) and they thus had a template.

However, neither Hermione nor Sirius had quite been able to get the superchargers right - so that much was up to Harry.

Two saluting house elves chose that moment to pop up; Harry recognised both, though he'd never seen Winky dressed like that before. She was wearing a flightsuit matching Dobby's, with one minor detail difference; Dobby now bore a small cloth badge on his left breast, in the form of a double-headed eagle clutching a bomb in each talon.

"Dobby and Winky is reportses for duty, Mr Harry Potter Sir!" Dobby said. "We is being ready to be strafes the Bad Masters Malfoyses when Mr Harry Potter Sir is gives order!"

"Good to hear it." Harry said, returning the salute, much to the very visible delight of both elves. "It's been a while, Winky. How're you holding up?"

"Winky is being does okay now, Mr Harry Potter Sir." Winky said, repeatedly saluting. "Winky is not has earning wings yet, Winky is crashed mebbe some times, but Winky is learning very quick, Mr Harry Potter Sir!"

"Well, everyone's gotta start somewhere, eh? So, how do you fancy flying tail-gunner with Dobby?"

"Ooooh, Winky is likes this idea very very very much Mr Harry Potter Sir!"

Harry squatted down to bring himself to eye level with the little elf.

"Winky, you realise this is going to involve killing people, don't you?" he asked.

"Winky is knows this, Mr Harry Potter Sir." Winky gravely said, nodding repeatedly. "Winky is not really likes idea, but Winky is knows that sometimes elfses is has to be doing very difficult things, or there is being Swastickers on the Bukkyking Ham Pallers place. It is bees wartime, Mr Harry Potter Sir, and in wartime someone is has to be doing bad things or everyone is being in big big big big big big trouble." She took a deep breath, sounding slightly tremulous. "Winky is not knowing if Winky is being ready, but there is only being one way that Winky is being able to be finding out, Mr Harry Potter Sir."

Harry nodded thoughtfully.

"I want you to know how much I appreciate this, Winky." He said.

Winky's lower lip trembled a bit, but she remained at sharp attention.

"Winky is knowing this thing, Mr Harry Potter Sir." she said. "Mr Harry Potter Sir is being a good and great and noble and wonderful wizard, and if elfses is fights the enemies of Mr Harry Potter Sir, elfses is fights the enemies of all that is being good and great and noble and wonderful, and maybe if elfses is fights hard enough the world is being it's right and proper shape again." She saluted. "Winky is doing everything Winky and Dobby is being able to think of to be preparing, and Winky is being ready to try."

"Thankyouy. Winky. I owe you. The same goes for you, Dobby. I owe both of you, and Sirius and Hermione, a hell of a lot, because you beleive in me when so many people don't." Harry said.

"It is being honour, Mr Harry Potter Sir." Winky solemnly told him. "For long time, Winky is not being happy elf. Winky is not having thing to be live elf for. Then Dobby is shows Winky about be pilot, and Winky is has thing to be live elf for again." She smiled, and looked at the Stuka. "And anyways, when Winky's hand is being on the stick, Winky is feels very very very much alive. Winky is now being certain that Mr Harry Potter Sir is not knows what a great and noble thing he is being does for elfses. Since time not there, elfses has dreamed of flying... and Mr Harry Potter Sir is shows elfses how to fly. Mr Harry Potter Sir's Stuka, it is not being pretty, but it is being mighty, and it is being one of most tremendous and incredible things that a wizard is ever trusts elfses with." She looked back at Harry, her expression most solemn. "Mr Harry Potter Sir is doing incredible thing for elfses - so it is only being right and proper that elfses is doing incredible thing for Mr Harry Potter Sir."

"Is being so." Dobby said with a nod. "Mr Harry Potter Sir is loves elfses, elfses is being able to know because of things that Mr Harry Potter Sir is says and does for elfses. Miss Grangy Ma'am is loves elfses too, but Miss Grangy Ma'am is not understanding elfses. Mr Harry Potter Sir IS understanding elfses, and Mr Harry Potter Sir is gives elfses things that elfses need. And that is why when elfses is talks about Mr Harry Potter Sir they is talks about The Great Wizard Mr Harry Potter Sir." He smiled happily. "Now, we is needs to be scrambling. The Bad Masters Malfoyses house is not bombs itself."

With that, the two elves saluted and ran off for the Stuka, leaving a very bemused Harry to gawp at their backs.

"... but I didn't do anything special." he said.

"You did, Harry." Hermione told him, hugging him from behind. "You're special just by being who you are."

---------------------

There were, on August Twelfth 1995, less than two dozen people in the world who knew where Malfoy Manor actually was.

The building was covered by an unplottability ward; the best that can be said (by anyone not possessing the second sight of the Fey) s that it was about twenty miles due north of Carlisle, somewhere on the border between Scotland and England.

However, like all house elves, the two-elf crew of the Ju-87-I Stuka 'Lily Potter's Revenge' possessed the second sight of the Fey.

To a house elf (like all Fey creatures) what humans call visible-range light is a secondary sensory source. Minor Fey of the Seelie they might be - but the second sight they had. Their primary sense was the ability to see magic itself; being minor Fey, there hadn't historically been a hell of a lot they could do about it.

Until a pair of boys called Harry Potter and Dudley Dursley, a man called Sirius Black, and a girl called Hermione Granger, had granted them wings, that they might fly. Wings that came with a V12 engine, a pair of 37mm-calibre cannons, and a couple of nice fat bombs.

Then the second sight became very important, though neither Dobby nor Winky had realised it. It allowed them to locate Malfoy Manor at a glance; thanks to hours of practise within the Room of Requirements, and their innate sense of where magical people were, they zeroed in on the manor like a laser-guided missile, flying low and fast, the Junkers' throttle pasted to the firewall, air speed hovering around the mark of three hundred miles per hour and altitude just shy of five thousand feet.

---------------------

It was over North Yorkshire that it happened.

An RAF Panavia Tornado F3 fighter of 25 Squadron, out of RAF Leeming, was heading north-northeast at an altitude of roughly ten thousand feet when the pilot, Flight Lieutenant Tim McDonald, spotted something.

"Control, this is Alpha Flight. I'm seeing an unidentified aircraft below me, altitude approximately five thousand feet, approximate speed roughly two hundred sixty knots, heading approximately ten degrees. Do you have anything on radar? Over."

"Ah, negative on that Alpha Flight, you're the only activity for nearly a hundred kays. Can you get me a range on that contact? Over."

"That's a negative, Control. I've got nothing on the scope, but we're both seeing it. Over."

"... ah, roger that Alpha Flight. I'm sending this upstairs; maintain visual on the contact. Over."

"Roger, willco. Over."

A couple minutes passed in silence as the Tornado orbited the unidentified aircraft at a good fifteen kilometers range.

"Alpha Flight, this is Control. Close to point blank with the unidentified contact, and identify. Repeat, close to point blank and identify. Try to get a visual on the unidentified contact's serial number, and if you cannot, do your best to get guncamera footage. Over."

"Roger that, Control. Closing on the contact. Over."

A minute of silence, then:

"Control, you're not going to believe this. I have ID on the mark of the contact. Repeat, I have ID on the mark of the contact. It's a goddamned Stuka! Negative on a serial number, and negative on identification of the paint scheme, but it's definitely a Stuka. Over."

"Are you certain of that ID, Alpha Flight? Over."

"Positive on that, Control. Or can you think of any other two-seaters with an inverted gull-wing and fixed undercarriage? Over."

".... ah, that's a negative, Alpha Flight. Are your scopes still clear? Over."

"That's a positive, Control. He's not putting an inky hiccup on my radar, and... BLOODY HELL! Control, I don't beleive what I'm seeing, and I won't until I'm looking at the guncamera tapes. Permission to withdraw? Over."

"Ah, that's a negative, Alpha Flight. Maintain contact, we've got backup on the way, and they're packing. Repeat, maintain contact. Over."

"... shit."

------------------------------

Dobby was starting to get concerned, but he was doing a good job of hiding it from Winky.

After the RAF jet's close pass, he'd dropped four thousand feet of altitude; he was tearing across the north of England with the wheels only a thousand feet from the dirt, one eye on the engine's temprature gauge and the other on the view ahead, his magical senses extended - he could clearly see the cooling charms on radiator, engine block and exhausts leeching heat away from the redlining V12. Everything magical outside the plane was somewhat fuzzy thanks to the thin film of dragon-hide - actually paper-thin sheddings, almost as transparent to the eye as glass - that clad the Junkers' exterior.

Another two RAF jets joined the first one. Dobby peered over his shoulder, sitting up half out of his seat, and concern became worry as he saw the heat-seeking missiles beneath the wings of the newcomers.

He dropped another three hundred feet of altitude.

-----------------------------

"Yeah, he's running, he's running. Over."

"Weapons free, Gamma Flight. Repeat, weapons free. Splash Gorgon. Over."

"Damn thing! The fuckhead's not giving off enough heat for a lock... DAMNIT! Over."

"Language, Gamma Two. Over."

"Groundloop's right, Control. I swear a freaking seagull produces more heat than this bas- bugger. Over."

"Pass him as close as you can, Gamma Flight. See if you can shake him up with a sonic boom or two. Over."

"Ah, roger that Control, we're kicking her in the guts. Over."

-------------------------------

"Yowch!" Dobby complained, fighting with the stick and rattling his head around.

"Owie." Winky agreed. "Is thems being Natserys?"

"No, no, thems is being silly buggers." Dobby assured her. "Winky is holds onto hat - we is takes scenic route."

And he ditched another six hundred feet of altitude.

The Junkers was now tearing along with her wheels only a hundred feet from the dirt, telegraph poles flicking past only fifty or sixty feet from the port wingtip as they followed the route of a muggle motorway; Dobby felt as if his eyes were going to burn holes in the cockpit canopy, and he was certain the stick was deforming a bit in his grip.

He was perfectly aware of the trail of shat pants and burnt rubber he was leaving behind him as they raced north, scaring the pants off a whole load of rather unfortunate motorists.

--------------------------

"He's insane! Over."

"Control, whoever our bogey is, he's really got her in the dirt. I figure his altitude to be around a hundred feet even, and he's right on top of a bleeding motorway. Over."

"Understood, Gamma Flight. Keep shadowing him. Stay as close as you can, and maintain visual at all times. Over."

"Roger that, Control. Complying. Over."

-----------------------

Finally, Carlisle having fallen behind them, the two elves hit paydirt as Malfoy Manor appeared from among the trees.

Dobby didn't even need to drop the Stuka's nose. He just had to thumb the trigger for a couple seconds, then pull back on the stick, sending the old plane zooming up away from the manor. He was awarded by a squeaky war-whoop from Winky followed by the chatter of the MG-81Z as she sprayed the roof.

----------------------

"Jesus Christ, he's opened fire! That damn thing is packing. Repeat, Gorgon has opened fire. Over."

"Understood, Gamma Flight. Any damage? Over."

"He hasn't so much as glanced at us since he went NOE, but he's sure blown the shit out of a civvie building. Oh holy Hell, he's going in again - I still can't get a lock on the bastard! Over."

-----------------------------

Dobby turned the Stuka, and went in again, another hail of 37mm shells streaking towards Malfoy Manor.

As they streaked over, less than thirty feet from the manor's roof, he let go both bombs for good measures, and then they were tearing away to the south and home, Winky holding down the tail guns until she couldn't get an angle any more.

---------------------------

The Tornadoes stayed on them the whole way south. Dobby kept the Stuka as low as he dared the whole way, following muggle roads right through the centre of London, weaving between buildings and doing everything he could to throw the jets off - a goal he acheived when he flew under Tower Bridge and turned hard north, incidentally ending up buzzing Buckingham Palace on his way as he and the Tornados radically disrupted air traffic in and out of Heathrow.

He didn't fully relax until the Stuka's wheels were back on the grass outside the hanger, and he'd made his report to Harry, concluding with, "Dobby is thinks we is needs ways for to be seeing muggle planses coming before they is seeing us, Mr Harry Potter Sir."

"Congratulations, Harry." Hermione said with a grin. "It's your first UFO incident."

Harry gave her the do-you-work-here look.

"We need something like radar that isn't actually radar." Hermione continued. "You see, when a radar set is running it puts out a radio signal all the time, right? So it's a bit like trying to hide when you're waving a floodlight around."

"Aren't there like radars and stuff at airports and such-like?" Harry asked. "Would we be able to use their radio signals?"

"It'd be difficult." Hermione told him.

"When isn't it?" Sirius asked with a laugh. "Come on, let's go gut that old radar set."

"Hang on." Hermione said. "We couldn't detect the Junkers with that radar set, right? It just cast a radar shadow on more distant traces when it came between us and them. I figure that it's acting as a black-body on radar - so, the dragon-hide absorbs any radio-wavelength light that falls on the plane. And the cooling charms you guys put on the engine, radiator and exhausts ought to reduce it's thermal signature enough that a heat-seeking missile won't lock onto it. I theorize that, until we get some sort of magical radar-analogue worked out, we can evade muggle aircraft very easily."

"Okay, but how?" Harry asked.

"By flying low, keeping away from commercial aviation flight-paths, and only operating at night." Hermione explained.

"So we is being night bombers, yes?" Dobby asked, nodding thoughtfully. "We is needs to be putting flame maskerses on the Stuka."

"Listen, my uncle Timothy's in the Royal Air Force, he flies Tornadoes, and he likes to talk about his work." Hermione continued, nodding. "Well, the stuff he's allowed to talk about, that is - and if I'm not asking about classified stuff, he's always answered as best as he can. That's why I actually know the basics about aircraft. There's got to be a way the RAF can distinguish between one plane and another when they're in the air, and I'm pretty sure they can do it without the plane's radar being switched on."

"I didn't know you had an uncle." Harry said.

"Oh, I've got - well, I had three. Dad's got a twin brother and two elder sisters, and Mum has - had - two brothers, one older and one younger. Uncle Timothy's Mum's elder brother." Hermione explained. "Their little brother Stanley died in the Falklands, though."

---------------------------

When Danielle Crabbe (currently in mourning) heard the banging on the door, she was annoyed.

Annoyance became shock when she found three bloodied Malfoys on her doorstep.

Shock became horror when she saw that Narcissa was holding Lucius up with one arm, while holding a torniquet tight round the stub that had been Draco's left arm with the other.

"Oh sweet Merlin, get inside quickly!"

----------------------------

(Scene by Chris Hill, with a few small additions & alterations)

The country of France has had it's detractors over the years.

One of the most common stereotypes utilised by these detractors is that the French will roll over to anyone who invades their country, as if they are the whores of Europe.

However, that stereotype is based on selective ignorance of history. France has indeed been occupied more than once, but the French did not allow the enemy in without a fight - especially not the last time. Outgunned and overpowered by the Nazi regeime, they had turned to guerilla warfare, and in this they had become experts.

There were more ways to fight than straight ahead, and the French had proven this time after time.

The most famous example would be the French Resistance, or the Maquis. For the freedom-loving people of France, more than willing to accept people without prejudice, such evil as Hitler could not be born - and it was clear to any rational being that such evil was once more rearing it's ugly head.

And it went by the name of Voldemort. France had seen his like before; all too many Frenchmen had perished to Hitler's madness, and they would not stand idle and allow a repeat. Yet they couldn't just charge in and fight Voldemort straight on; the hidebound, complacent government of Wizarding Britain would pitch a kitten-fit.

Since the French Ministry - Le Department Magique - paid attention to all happenings in the nations around them, unlike the British Ministry of Magic, they were in fact aware of the unusual Stuka flight. Some checking of records showed that the plane's first target was a supposedly abandoned muggle manor in the villiage that one Mr Harry Potter had claimed to have played host to the ressurection of the self-titled 'Lord Voldemort'. When the Stuka took to the air again, the French were aware of it earlier even than the Royal Air Force. They watched it's progress with guarded interest; the plane was of a type that had caused horrenduous damage to France and her allies early in the Second World War. When they saw exactly what the Stuka was doing, a tentative suggestion was raised that the owners and operators of this aircraft might in fact be the good guys. Questions were asked; who had put that old plane in the air, who had decided to give Voldemort's lapdogs a bloody nose?

It was a small quarter-Veela girl by the name of Gabrielle DeLacour who, listening to her parents discussing the Stuka, first raised a possibility that was, in hindsight, rather obvious.

Who among the wizards of Britain had tried to warn the world of that evil madman's return, had frequent contact with the muggle world, and had been treated badly for his attempts at a warning? And who, among the tiny number of people this described, was known to actively despise the English branch of the Malfoys to such a degree as to bomb them?

Hogwarts had recently played host to many magical chidreren of France, who had been considered 'weak pansies' by several uninformed individuals.

Those children, however, had learned from their parents; they had learned the hard-won lessons from a hard-fought guerilla war.

To properly fight a war with little damage to yourself, appear to be something you are not.

Enterprising individuals, armed with the now-rampant speculation and some (surprisingly accurate) guesswork, realised that a new war was being fought, utilising whatever could be got a hold of. And some of them had children, who had almost universally been quite impressed with Mr Potter. There was no question of not supporting the young man - if he was, indeed, responsible for this yet-young offensive against the forces of evil.

Besides, now they could go and save Britain, and rub the Brit's noses in it, just like the British had done to France in the Second World War. The fact that a Nazi aircraft was being used by the apparent 'good guys' this time around simply added a layer of delicious irony. The French have always liked a good laugh.

New letters were drawn up, and old family weapons from a supposedly-byegone age were polished and made as new again.

The motto: 'Be ingenious so that you return home at night with a tranquil conscience because you have done your daily sabotage' rang forth once more.

La Resistance was back in business.

------------------------------------

"I understand you have a message for me, young man?"

Vinnie Crabbe shuffled nervously. From what he'd heard, the Dark Lord's response to this news was liable to be... painful.

"Yer, melord." he said. "S' about Draco an' Mr Malfoy. Them's 'ome were attacked an' them's urt bad. Melord, Draco's arm's off an' is' dad's unconscious. Ma sez it's gotta be bad cuz we can't revive Mr Malfoy."

"... I see." Voldemort quietly stated, closing his eyes for a moment. "Damn, damn, damn... Severus!"

"Yes, My Lord?"

"You will accompany young Mr Crabbe, and see what may be done for Lucius and his son. Go now, both of you."

"At once, My Lord." the two - man and boy - chorused, and scarpered, glad to be getting let off without a Crucio or two.

Inside the deeply-buried cave Voldemort was now using as a temporary headquarters, the Dark Lord bowed his head in contemplation.

"Mulciber!"

"Yes, My Lord?"

"Take a camera, and photograph the damage to Malfoy Manor. And at least try to have some subtlety? Utilise an invisibility cloak; there are likely to be Ministry idiots on the scene, and if the ward-stone has been disturbed it is liable to be heaving in muggles."

"At once, My Lord."

Mulciber too left in a great hurry.

"Are you well, My Lord?" Bellatrix asked. Ah, yes. Having his loyal Death Eaters within the Aurors remove her from Azkaban had been quite worthwhile. She was looking a bit beat-up, as one would expect from someone who'd spent over a decade in that pit, but there were still signs of her former beauty. He dismissed the others, then beckoned her over to him; she relaxed into his grip as he seated her against his side.

The Dark Lord sighed heavily. Bellatrix - poor dear fanatical Bellatrix - was the only one of his Death Eaters he could show any sign of weakness to. In the good old days, she'd been his favourite concubine. Perhaps those days could come again.

"No, Bellatrix." he said. "I am not okay." He glanced at the ceiling. "This stone may seem impentrable... but the muggles have devices that could destroy it, utterly. We need broom-riders at the very least. We must have constant air cover." He sighed again. "DAMNIT! Why did those accursed vermin have to interfere NOW?"

------------------------------------------

"OK, so that's two trial runs." Harry said. It was getting pretty late, and Hermione would have to head home soon, but they'd just got all four of the Lanc's engines running and were relaxing round a camp fire with some celebratory beers.

"What is Mr Harry Potter Sir means, trial runses?" Dobby asked. They'd invited him and Winky to join him, but both elves had turned down beer. When Hermione managed to translate the resultant Dobby-ese, it transpired that house elves (primarily due to their significantly lower body mass) have an instant and spectacular reaction to even the slightest amounts of alcohol. Butterbeer was slightly alcoholic, to the tune of about half a percent, and this was enough to get a house elf drunk. Even a cheap piss-strength lager would be strong enough that a house elf would pass out within half a pint, and a really strong beer could kill a house elf. One shot of spirits? Dead.

"I mean our raids today and yesterday. Trial runs." Harry said. "Oh, don't look at me like that, I know they went off okat, though it's not like we got anyone imporant - not your fault, it's not like dive-bombers are Voldemort-Bunghole-Seeking - but it proved one thing."

"What's that?" Sirius asked.

"It works." Harry stated. "It all works. The planes work, with an aircrew of house elves they can find even securely warded things - hell, come to think of it I didn't have to tell any of the elves where this airbase is - and a wizard hit by a bomb or a bullet is just as dead as a muggle hit with the same bomb or bullet. We've got a lot of flaws to iron out, we've got things we need to add to the planes... but it all works. We're in the game with a head start. You heard Dobby's after-action reports, Sirius. That's six Death Eaters who won't hurt anyone ever again. Draco's not got a left arm any more. Lucius is in a bad way. The Death Eaters are FRIGHTENED. Of US. We're in the game, guys, and when we come for them those fuckers are going to seriously regret it for a very short time."

"We haven't got very long before I'll have to head back to Hogwarts." Hermione remarked. "What's the plan then?"

"How many house elves do we have so far, Dobby?" Harry asked.

"We is has twenty-two elfses, Mr Harry Potter Sir." Dobby said. "Dobby is being only Pilot elf so far, but we is has five elfses who is being trains as pilotses, and Dobby is thinking two is being qualifies for wingses very soon. Nine elfses is works in muniterons productyration, and seven elfses is being Aperers and is trains to be Commanderatoes. Mr Harry Potter Sir's Aperers is being takes care of Miss Grangy Ma'am when Miss Grangy Ma'am is not being at Mr Harry Potter Sir's airbase, and Dobby is stations two Aperers to be takes care of Mr Dudsey Sir, they is takes rotatering shiftses." He scratched his chin. "Dobby is being recruitering whenever Dobby is has time. There is being many, many elfses who is not has place, and for elfses, not has place is being very bad thing." He nodded to Hermione. "Dobby knows that Miss Grangy Ma'am is not understands what Dobby is means. Dobby is asking Miss Grangy Ma'am to be taking Dobby's word for it; Dobby is being a house elf, so Dobby is knowing what it is being like to be being a house elf."

"I still don't like the way you guys are treated." Hermione said.

Dobby nodded. "Dobby is knows that, Miss Grangy Ma'am. All elfses is knows that. All elfses who is not being very stupid elfses like Mr Sirius Padfeets Black Sir's Kreacher is loving Miss Grangy Ma'am because Miss Grangy Ma'am is loves elfses." Dobby turned his attention back to Harry. "We is recruits elfses as quickly as we is bees able. Many elfses is being very nervous about takes places, because old places is being treats elfses badly, but Dobby is thinking elfses is comes round soon, and when Mr Harry Potter Sir's bombses is makes the very bad Mr Mackynare go splat there is being four elfses who is gets away from bad place like Mr Harry Potter Sir helped Dobby get away from bad place, and Dobby is thinking they is joins up very soon."

"They is talks to Winky this morning, Mr Harry Potter Sir." Winky said. "They is says they is needs to be thinks about it, but Winky is recognising way they is saying it and Winky is knowing they is already decided they is going to be joins Mr Harry Potter Sir's elfses."

Harry nodded thoughtfully.

"I see." he said. "I reckon it'd be worthwhile getting someone on finding out what elves are in bad situations, then coming up with plans for getting them out of there. If they're owned by Death Eater families, we'll shoot to kill. If not, we'll use trickery, like I did when I tricked Lucius into freeing you, Dobby."

Dobby nodded solemly.

"Dobby is making sure that it is gets done, Mr Harry Potter Sir." he said. "Four Aperers is being almost ready to be being Commanderatoes, and Dobby is thinking they is needs test run. Hmm... the very bad Mr Mulcyber is has two elfses who is very unhappy elfses; is Mr Harry Potter Sir thinking that maybe Commanderatoes should be shoots Mr Mulcyber full of holeses?"

Harry nodded. "Write up a mission plan, have them do some practise runs the same way as you're doing flight training, then let me know as soon as you think they're ready and we'll launch the mission." he said.

"Dobby is making sure it is gets done, Mr Harry Potter Sir." Dobby said, with another solemn nod.

------------------------

"Had a good day, sweetie?" Hermione's father, Jeff Granger, asked as soon as he saw his daughter enter the living room. From the sodden state of her hair, she'd washed as soon as she'd got home - just like she'd been doing for days. He'd seen the state of her (smeared with grease and oil) when she got in at one point, and understood why she'd immediately had a bath.

"Yeah, it went pretty well today, Dad." Hermione said, sprawling on the sofa. "We got the Lancaster's engines running at last. Harry reckons we'll be ready to put her new skin on by the day after tomorrow... Mum, Dad, when will Uncle Timothy be around next?"

"He's got leave coming up next week." Her mother - Alice Granger - told her. "He said he'd drop past."

"Cool." Hermione said. "Dobby had a bit of a scare with some RAF planes earlier today, and we need to know how to spot other aircraft before they're in visible range."

"Hermione, just what have you and your friends been getting up to?" Jeff asked, putting his newspaper down. "You've been talking about old-school aircraft all week... what's going on?"

"I told you about the Dark Lord." Hermione said. "That's what's going on. My friend Harry decided to introduce the Dark Lord to air power."

"I'm listening." Jeff said. In Jeff-ese, that meant, 'Carry on so I can decide whether you're in trouble'.

"The Dark Lord makes Hitler look like the Easter bunny." Hermione said with a sigh. "The government are refusing to even try to do anything about the bastard. Headmaster Dumbledore's going senile. We're the only people who can or will fight back."

"I really wish you weren't involved in this stuff." Alice said, shaking her head.

"I'm involved because of the way I was born." Hermione told her mother. "Mum, the Dark Lord and his fanatics want to kill me because I'm not part of some inbred thousand-year-old family line. They want to kill me because my parents aren't magical. There's only one way to make sure they never come for me, and... well, I guess you can figure out what that is."

"Get them before they get you, huh?" Jeff asked.

Hermione nodded. "I know it sounds horrible, Dad." she said. "But it's the only way we can think of." She stood up. "I'm sorry, Dad. But I can't let you stop me. Without Harry, I don't have any future worth speaking of."

Jeff smiled grimly.

"You've got me dead wrong, Hermione." he said. "You told me about that Dark Mark thingy, and... my mum had a tattoo on her arm. She didn't get it from joining some race-hate murder club... she got it in 1943 in a place called Belsen."

"... oh." Hermione whispered.

Jeff sighed.

"Mum was Jewish. That meant, in Europe during the Second World War, she was in the same place as you are today. Dad was one of the guys who found that hellhole." He shook his head. "Mum remembered seeing Dad come driving into the camp until the day she died. When I asked her about how she ended up marrying Dad, she... well, she said that as soon as she saw him she knew she had to stick close to him, because she knew that as long as she was near that man, nothing and nobody would ever be able to hurt her again."

"I didn't know that." Hermione said, sounding very quiet.

Jeff nodded. "I know, honey. I... didn't want to burden you with it."

The small family shared a quiet, contemplative moment, then Jeff sighed again.

"So you'll understand why I'm saying... Hermione, if there's anything I or your mother can do to help you and you friends stop those bastards, just ask, and it's done."

--------------

"This is..." The Wing Commander murmured, shaking his head.

"Sir?" Flight Leutenant Tim McDonald queried. He, his partner, the comms officer who'd been on duty, and the crews of the other two Tornadoes were standing, somewhat uncomfortable, in Wing Commander Ian Sheppard's office, having just finished reviewing the three aircraft's guncamera footage of the indicent with the radar-invisible Stuka.

The Wing Commander had insisted on reviewing the segment from McDonald's close pass on the Stuka six times straight; there was now a freeze-frame from that sequence up on the projector.

"Creepy." Sheppard said. "Creepy as Hell... you're all absolutely certain you couldn't see our bandit's target building until after the two bombs had detonated?"

There was a round of nodding and confirmation.

Sheppard nodded back.

"I hope you all realise... hang on." he cut off as his phone started ringing.

"Sheppard here... WHAT? I see... No... No... Definitely not, we've been through the tapes... They did? Well, that's one thing... I see. Very well, I'd appreciate it if you'd keep me posted, Colonel." After exchanging a few pleaseantaries, he put the phone back on the hook and sat back with a sigh.

"That was the fellow who's troops were examining the target while you lads were asleep." he said. "That damned manor looks like it crawled straight out of the Victorian era. Not a single piece of electronics in the whole place. And shortly after they'd established a perimeter and completed the preliminary checks, it vanished again. There's men from the Special Air Service combing the whole area, and the only sign they've found that the damn manor ever existed is some wreckage they've managed to dig out the woods." He leant forwards. "I hope you realise how classified all this is, boys."

"Yessir." the airmen all chorused.

"Good."

-------------------------

"Morning, Harry." Hermione called, ambling into the hanger.

"Morning, Hermione. Slept well?" Harry answered. He and Sirius were over at Harry's workbench; Harry was fiddling with some electronics while Sirius carefully assembled something composed of brass, wood, and crystal.

"Yeah, I slept okay - once I got to bed." she said, taking a look at what Harry was doing. The electronics proved to be the guts of a civil aviation radar set; the associated engineer's manual was laying open on the workbench. "Whatcha doing, guys?"

"I'm working out what makes this thing tick." Harry said.

"This is a copy of what I put together to turn my bike invisible." Sirius put in with a boyish grin. "Only about ten times the size and power - I figure once I'm finished it'll be enough to turn the whole Stuka invisible. Problem is, I've got no idea what to use to power it. The bike's invisibility field gets it's 'juice' from the wizard doing the riding, just the same as a broom or an invisibility cloak. To give enough oomph for this, we'd need to cram like five wizards into a plane the size of the Stuka. For the Lanc, it'd be more like thirty. I'm thinking about trying a ward-stone, if we can get hold of one or make one. Goddamnit, we need Moony - he's always been better at runes than me."

"Can we trust him though?" Harry asked.

"That's the problem, isn't it?" Sirius asked, looking up from his gizmo. "He's loyal to Dumbledore, though I'm not sure how much so. I'm sure Dumbledore's figured out I took off with you, and I must admit I've got absolutely no idea how he's going to react. Though, well, once he works out where the planes are coming from, I'm pretty sure it won't be a good kind of reaction."

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Get one of the house elves to take a note to Professor Lupin; I'm pretty sure we're stumped for now. I'm gonna write to Fred and George."

"The Weasely twins?" Sirius asked. At Harry's nod, he looked puzzled. "Um, why?"

"Sirius, there aren't a hell of a lot of magical humans I trust any more, in fact I can literally count 'em on the fingers of one hand." Harry said, putting the radar set's printed circuit board down. "You're one. Hermione's the second. The third and fourth are Gred and Forge Weasely. And anyway, we need them - they are geniuses, and plotting mayhem is their favourite hobby."

Selecting an available blank sheet of paper, Harry scrawled a brief note, called for a house elf (getting one of the ones in ARP helmets) and asked the Arper to take the letter to Fred and George Weasely once they were somewhere private, and if they asked, bring them to see Harry. The elf departed with a salute. Sirius then did much the same, only sending his note to Remus Lupin.

---------------------------

(Scene altered from a rough by Rorsch)

The poster slipped from house to house. From attic to basement to the space under the stairs. The house elves passed it from one to the other in secret and stared at it behind locked doors, treating it with near-religious reverence. Across the length and breadth of the Wizarding World, the message burned it's way like wildfire through the servant's meagre quarters.

It featured a young man with intense eyes, staring out with an extended finger, a great golden double-headed heraldic eagle behind him and, despite the lack of an enchantment, the eyes and finger seemed to follow one around the room. The small caption below prodived the oppressed masses with something they'd been without for centuries; hope.

It read:

'Harry Potter Needs You'.

-----------------------------

'Hey guys, Harry here.

I've got a couple of problems (practical problems) and I think your devious minds might be able to solve them. The solution will help make a whole load of Death Eaters very dead; the Ministry and Dumbledore aren't doing anything, so sod it, I'm doing something.

If you're up for giving it a go, ask the house elf who brought you this note to bring you to me.

See you soon,

Harry.'

"So whatcha think, Forge?" Said Fred.

"Most ominous, Gred." Said George. They looked at each other, each with the same question in his eyes, then nodded at each other and started packing all their mayhem-makings into their portable lab.

With that done (and the lab collapsed and stuffed in Fred's back pocket) they turned to the tin-hatted gas-masked house elf, who was still stood in that slightly awkward stiff upright board-like stance.

"Please oh please take us to visit Harry, Mr Elf Sir!" they chorused.

The house elf's resulting stance looked a bit taken aback.

"Yes, Mr Gred Sir and Mr Forge Sir." he said, taking their hands.

And then they were somewhere else.

The airbase had changed a bit since Hermione first saw it, though Fred and George of course did not know that. Much of the undergrowth had been hacked back away from the ruined hangers, and a team of four house elves were rebuilding a hanger while another three were listening attentively as Dobby paced around in front of the Stuka and wildly monologuing in suitably convoluted elf-ese. There was an enormous pile of scrap metal (mostly old smashed-up cars) beside the hanger, and great rolls of dragon-hide stacked up beside the now somewhat less dilapitated but still skeletal Lancaster. Harry was in the bomber's cockpit, testing the restored flight controls.

And the sound, oh god the SOUND. The noise made by four idling Rolls-Royce Merlins is unforgettable; the twins jaws dropped, and they hurried over towards the hanger, stopping about thirty feet from the Lanc's wingtip as the thunder of the aero-engines became a bit uncomfortable. They then stood there and gawked; they'd never heard anything like it. They figured this was a muggle engine, but they'd had no idea that the muggles had engines that sounded like THAT. Nothing they'd ever heard could even begin to compare to it.

Having got a full round of thumbs-ups from Sirius and Hermione, Harry shut the engines down and climbed out of the Lanc. That was when he saw Fred and George, who were just being joined by Remus.

"Hey guys." he said, slouching over and cleaning the worst of the grease and oil off his hands with a rag that had at one time been one of Dudley's handed-down shirts. "Good to see you all turning out."

"Harry!" Remus gasped. "Merlin, everyone's been really worried since you took off! Why - PADFOOT! I should have known."

"What in Merlin's name," George began, pointing at the Lanc,

"- is that thing?" Fred cut in. "Because,"

"Whatever it is," George provided,

"It's AWESOME!" they chorused.

"That's an Avro Lancaster bomber." Harry said, glancing over his shoulder at the Lanc. "She's not finished yet, she hasn't got her skin on yet and we haven't so much as started on the bomb racks or the machine gun positions, and it's probably gonna be a right bugger getting the windows right. And we haven't got any of her enchantments on yet, or started working out what we'll do to up-arm her."

"Okay," George said,

"But what's it FOR?" Fred asked.

Harry grinned, picked up that morning's copy of the Daily Prophet, and tossed it to Fred.

"Read the article about what happened to Malfoy Manor yesterday." he said.

They did so, joined by Remus. It was in the Prophet's typical superior tones, and went on about a horrific assault on an upstanding member of the community.

"Holy crap," Fred said, peering at the photos of the damage.

"Someone must have decided they," George said,

"Really didn't like," Fred added,

"Malfoy Manor." they chorused.

"Well, it isn't so much that I don't like Malfoy Manor, there's nothing much wrong with it that not being owned by the Malfoys wouldn't solve." Harry said. "It's more that I decided to send Voldemort," he waited while people gasped, "And his goons a very clear message. Heh, nothing says 'Fuck You' like a strafing run."

"Are you saying you're behind the destruction of Malfoy Manor?" Remus asked, sounding taken aback, while the twins gawped; this was probably about the first time in their lives they'd been at a loss for words.

"And Riddle Manor." Harry said. "Voldemort - oh for fuck sake, it's just an anagram - was using Riddle Manor as his headquarters, at least we think so. He's now using a cave complex in Sutherland that's too deep for any of our bombs to get through to. Yet."

"I heard Snape's report, Harry." Remus said, looking shocked. "Six people died at Riddle Manor."

"No, six DEATH EATERS died at Riddle Manor." Harry riposted. "Oh, and I hear my bombs splattered Tommy's pet snake too. Good. That's six homicidal maniacs and a big brute of a snake that won't ever hurt anyone again. Dumbledore and the Ministry aren't DOING ANYTHING about that bastard. I am. Look, Professor. After that joke of a trial I decided I needed to sort my personal life out, and getting rid of Mouldyvorts is a good start."

"You realise the Ministry will likely start calling you a dark wizard when they find out about this?"

"No shit?" Harry complained. "Look, Professor. They're probably going to be calling me a dark lord before this is out. You know what I say? Screw them. They're a bunch of corrupt arrogant incompetents who couldn't find their own arses with a map. If I've got to be called a Dork Lord to sort this half-arsed ZOO we call the Wizarding World out, then so be it. Curses and hexes may break my bones, but names will never hurt me. The Ministry made an enemy the day they shitcanned me for defending myself. I had my doubts about them before that, but when they snapped my wand, that was the final straw. They want me, they can come and get me and we'll see how many of the morons it takes to pull me down. You wanna spend the rest of your life living in a world that thinks you're a monster because you've got an incurable disease? Go ahead, but don't expect me to just curl up and take the shit they've given me. I'm done with that game. I'm sick of reacting; I'm starting being the guy people react to. Fuck the Ministry, apart from the remarkably small number of decent people they've got working for 'em we're better off without them."

"So this is the revolution, right?" Remus asked.

"Damn straight." Harry said with a nod. "I didn't want it this way, but they left me with no choice."

"You could have stayed safe at home."

"Voldemort murdered my parents. Bang goes that idea. Get this straight, Professor. Privet Drive is NOT my home. It has never BEEN my home. I don't know why Dumbledore keeps shoving me back there, but sod it - there's only one person there I give a damn about, and it is NOT MY HOME. For a while, Hogwarts was my home. The Ministry took it away. Now this airbase is my home."

-----------------------

At that moment, in his office at Hogwarts where he had been doing pre-term prep work, Dumbledore was abruptly awoken from a nap by several of the gizmos on his desk producing horrible wailing noises.

The wards over Number 4 Privet Drive had collapsed.

----------------------

AN - Well, that's chapter 3 'in the can', so to speak. I'll be continuing posting each scene as I get 'em written in the thread for this post until such a time as I've got enough for another chapter.

The Panavia Tornado jet fighter was certainly the mainstay of the RAF in the 90's, though I understand it's now being phased out in favour of the Eurofighter. The squadron named were flying from the airbase named at the time of the story.

I'm unsure if the Lanc's flight controls were actually hydraulic. Um, poetic license?

(Addition to AN's on 15/12/2008) In response to some comments, there are UFO incidents on the record where the intercepting fighters have been ordered to shoot the unidentified flying object down without it having fired anything, and not just in Soviet Russia - on at least one, the guys who got the order were driving RAF Tornadoes. If it's weird enough, an aircraft's failure to respond to comms will be taken as a sign of hostility - and in the mid-90's, I think a strangely-painted radar-transparent Stuka crewed by 'gremlins' would be regarded as weird enough.

Cheers,

Cal.


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